


Book One: Ash

by crowleyshouseplant



Series: Azula's Search [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Flashbacks, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-03 20:05:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 39,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6624382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her defeat at the hands of Katara, Azula has lost her throne, her father, and her firebending. Held prisoner in her once lavish quarters, she is desperate to escape, and makes a proposition to Firelord Zuko that he cannot refuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Additional content warnings for this chapter: brief description of self harm midway through the chapter, Azulon is also abusive towards Azula.

Blue fire scorched Azula's lips until the comet disappeared beyond the horizon, following the path her father had sailed as he left her behind.  

Then there was nothing but the chains chafing her wrists and her barren, parched mouth. Her lip was split down the middle from the dry heat as she stretched them tight around her bared teeth.  

Her body was an empty bag of flesh, and the grate to which she was chained dug into her knees like blunt teeth worrying a dried up, hollow bone. 

The sound of running water scraped against her ears. 

Her wet hair ran in rivulets down her back. Her heavy uniform stuck to her skin.  

When footsteps approached, she tried to burn the sound of them away, to scorch the threatening tread of boots, to teach them a lesson, but her mouth was empty, and too small for her tongue. 

Nothing escaped her lips but a ragged gasp, which she hid behind the crooked curtain of her hair, because she could not bend.  

Just like when Ty Lee had betrayed her, had chosen Mai over her, had taken her bending away. But the fire had come back, and it would come back again—it had to.  

Her body could not betray and abandon her too. 

Her fingers twitched against the chain as Mai and Ty Lee circled in her thoughts like hovering vultures. She had put them in prison so she would never have to see their faces again, yet they appeared to her more than ever, lingering in the shadows of her vision, in her dreams, in every waking moment. Even now she could hear Ty Lee's giggles and Mai's gloomy sighs. You lost, she could hear them say, you lost. 

Zuko crouched too close for her to turn her eyes away. He offered her water in a humble cup made of clay. Her scar marred his chest. Their father’s scar marred his face and overshadowed his mother’s eyes. Soon, he would bear his father’s crown, the crown that had almost been hers. 

His father’s son, and his mother’s boy. 

Azula flushed from shame, from embarrassment that anyone (but especially him) should see her in this way, on her knees, defeated by some water tribe peasant. Her hair caught in her mouth.  

“Come on, Azula,” Zuko said. 

She craned her body away, so that the chains bit into her wrists and hands, so that she could not see his offer of water.  

He had everything. He had the kingdom. The throne. He’d even found his pathetic honor. 

He had everything but this one thing he asked of her—that she drink from his hand like a child. Of course she would never give him that satisfaction. 

Who did he think she was?  

Sighing, he set the water aside, and reached towards her, unlooping the chains that bound her to the grate, setting her free. It was a mistake. She would show him. 

Azula lashed out with a loosely formed fist, her hands too tired and numb, already pricking as blood returned to her flesh. He caught her wrist and held her elbow as he breathed words she didn’t understand into her ear. 

Then he let her go, turning his back on her to join Katara—the one who had defeated her, doused her fire with water, leaving her with nothing, just as the comet had left her with nothing, and her father too. 

She tried to spit after his retreating body but her throat was too dry. Racking coughs shook her shoulders, and her fingertips scrabbled at the courtyard, scorched and burned from their Agni Kai, as if she could find whatever they had taken and stripped from her there in the ruins of her old life. 

Li and Lo came for her. She was sure she had banished one of them, but here they were, guiding her like she was three. She pushed their frail hands away, and they caught her fingers, kissed her scraped knuckles with their withering lips. 

They wiped her face with their rags and the cloth came back damp and grey with soot. “Your father’s back,” they told her. 

Would Father burn her for failing to keep the kingdom safe while he was away, or would he send her somewhere he would never see her face again? Would he do both, like he had done to Zuko? She would not scream, whatever he chose. She would not cower. She would not beg—as Zuko had. 

“He doesn’t want to see you,” they said.  

So it would be exile then. Would she have her own ship? Would Uncle come with his sage words, or would it be Li and Lo with their shaking, synchronized voices? What task would he give her to prove herself once more?  

She could do it. She had brought Ba Sing Se low, and it could be done again and again until it was nothing but ash. She could turn the Earth Kingdom into a charcoal scar, and she could boil the oceans of the Water Tribes until they wandered in deserts. 

Pain doubled in her side, and she staggered into Li (or Lo). They did not shy away from her, so she pushed harder. 

They were stronger than they looked—or had she grown weaker? 

She could do anything—but keep the kingdom safe from her traitor brother as he rose prouder and stronger than she had ever seen him stand before. 

She supposed she could kill him, but he was surrounded with friends while she was alone. But she could still find a way, and she would offer this gift to her father. She knew what he wanted in ways that Zuko never could.  

“Princess Azula, come,” Li and Lo said. 

She let them push her back into the grand empty halls of the palace, so quiet after she had banished her people with their harsh, grating words carving the skin from her ears. She let them pull her into her room, and they locked the door behind her. 

“Princess Azula, hold out your arms.” She did because she knew this routine as they removed her clothes—it was familiar to her. They drew a bath for her, hot water pouring from the faucets shaped like dragon maws. 

If the dragons yet lived, she would kill one for her father, bestowing its head at his feet.  

Grandfather should have asked for the head of the one that Uncle supposedly killed.  

Li and Lo helped her into the bath, and she drew up her legs against her bare chest because the water burned, it was so hot. She let her cheek rest in the cradle of her knees as Li and Lo sluiced water over her hair, gold combs inlaid with jade untangling the knots that had been made by the wind and her thrashing against the chains. 

She closed her eyes against the pull and scrape of the comb. It wasn’t as good as a royal hair combing, but it was familiar.  

They hummed under their breath something that Azula had not heard since she was a child. She clutched her knees with her fists as they murmured the words, resenting them. 

Goosebumps rose along her arms as the water chilled. She tried to make the water warmer, but it only got colder and colder until she could no longer hide her shivering. Li and Lo tugged her to her feet, dried her, and guided her to the wide bed.  

“Sleep now,” they told her. 

Azula looked over her shoulder at the shattered mirror. So many eyes and mouths stared back at her.  

Were they hers—or did another peer back over her shoulder? 

Of course they were hers. There was no trace of her mother in her. 

She was her father’s daughter, after all, as everyone did say. 

Were those her father’s eyes, her father’s sneer in her curled lip, or was it Zuko’s triumph over her that heated her cheeks red, that shamed and embarrassed her? 

Azula turned away, her finger pointing at the shattered glass, and Li or Lo covered the mirror with a fine cloth made of red silk. 

Their old hands tucked her into bed, pulled the covers to her chin like she was three so she pushed them away. Before they took their leave of her, they blew out the lamps, leaving thin ribbons of smoke behind them. 

She fell into an uneasy sleep—she twisted and turned, woke with the covers wet and damp against her knees and her forehead slippery with sweat. 

She sat up, fist over her heart to trap its fluttering, panicking beat. Someone had taken away her mirror and swept the shards away. Someone had put a tall glass of water beside her bed, and she took it in both hands, swallowing it down so quickly she coughed—but her thirst was not quenched. 

She slid from the bed, wiping her mouth with her wrist, and forced her breath to steady. She guided her breath through her stomach, then struck out with her palm. 

Nothing. 

It was one of the simplest steps, the first ones she had learned as a young girl when Azulon yet lived. 

She tried again, and there was nothing still. 

Sweat ran down the stiff channel of her spine under the rigid rise of her shoulders. Hair caught in her mouth as her lips opened, panting from effort. Fine shivers shook her arms, ruining her form. 

She heard her father’s voice: do it again. 

So she did. 

Not even a puff of smoke. 

If almost wasn’t good enough—then what were these pitiful demonstrations? His voice whispered in her ear, and she shook the sleep and fatigue from her limbs. Her fingers brushed against each other like dry parchment, waiting for a spark, as she tried again. 

Do it again. She heard his voice as if she was a child once more, coming to her from so many years ago.  

She failed.  

Again—Azula bashed her head against the wall of her chamber—again—never stopping even when pain sparked behind her eyes—again. 

Sweat soaked her robe. 

Do it again—harder, harder, harder until her pain burned blue and her head dizzied. 

There was a knocking on her door that she ignored as she did it again. Even though she hadn't invited them in, Li and Lo entered her room, and tried to pull her away. She pushed them off.  

Do it again, Ozai said, because almost isn’t good enough. 

Her skull ached. 

Li and Lo must have fetched her brother with his scarred face and scarred chest because he pulled her from the wall and forced her to sit on the bed. She tried to scratch him, but he wrestled her away, and then she realized, as her nails raked her own arms, that someone had clipped her claws—they were just blunt nubs now—useless. 

When had they done it?  

Had there been no fight in her? 

Her lungs cried for air. 

Zuko was shouting at her. It was normal for siblings to yell at each other. There would have been silence if she had been an only child. She remembered the silence that had descended upon the court when Father had banished him. No more shouting, no more crying, no more anything but him and his promises.  

“What's wrong with you?” He paused for breath, sparing a moment to look behind him at the small crowd that had gathered. The Avatar was there—and he was also small, just a boy really. Zuko’s new friends and allies were there—the ones he had chosen over his family.  

Once she hadn’t been so sure that he would choose her, not when he had been playing house with his uncle—and then he had abandoned her again in the dead of night when they had both secured their seats at their father’s side, when they'd both had everything that they wanted.  

What was it that Mai had told her? That she had—miscalculated? That she didn’t know people as well as she thought she did? 

Her lip twisted against her teeth and she clenched her robe in her fists as she thought she saw, at the very back, a fringe of shiny black hair and a too-long braid. 

Azula forced herself to be calm, to hide her clawed fists safely away inside her sleeves. Father would be so embarrassed if he saw her like this—if their enemies saw her like this. There had been a time when she had been cornered by her traitors and her enemies—and she had escaped. She could do so again. 

“Prince Zuko,” Li and Lo chorused together. “Princess Azula has lost her bending.” 

Azula clawed at her skin. She would have words with them—how dare they speak about her in that way. But her tongue refused to move. 

She closed her eyes. 

“Why isn't she saying anything?” Zuko asked. 

“She will not speak.” One of them patted her shoulder, and she jerked away. “It’s just like the time when you were banished, Lord Zuko. She didn’t speak for days.” 

The other nodded wisely. “For months.”  

They were lying. She tried to recall the things she had said, the orders she had issued but she could remember nothing except the blue fire blossoming from her palms, scorching the gardens, sending the turtle-ducks scuttling for the shelter of the pond—as if she couldn’t have evaporated it from the garden had she chosen to do so. 

“I thought that’d be the happiest day of her life,” Zuko said.  

It had been. She had been the only child, the only one who mattered. And the one time he had called for her, it was three years later to send her after Zuko, to bring him home. 

“She’s out of balance.” That was the Avatar. 

Whatever that meant. She had no use for Avatar talk. 

“I was afraid you’d have to—“ Zuko didn’t finish, and an awkward silence fell upon the crowd. She almost wanted to ask what Zuko was afraid of but then realized she didn’t care.  

“She’s just a kid though,” the Avatar said. She snapped her teeth when he tried to peer through the veil of her hair. “I mean, she’s only a little older than me.” 

“She’s dangerous.” It was the boy. The one with the boomerang. “Remind me again why she’s still here?” 

Apparently nobody wanted her to hear Zuko’s answer to that as he and the Avatar helped herd everyone out of the room until it was as if they had never been. 

She faltered for a moment, and looked to the mirror where she had seen her mother. Azula dug her fingers into the meat of her thigh to stop the memory of her mother with her long, beautiful hair, the words she had spoken in her gentle voice, as if she had understood Azula, as if she hadn’t thought her a monster— 

“Azula?” 

It was Zuko. He hadn’t left with the others. Instead, he sat beside her so that the bed dipped under his weight. “Do you even know what’s happened? Or are you too crazy?” 

She glared at him under the crooked fringe of her hair. “I’m not crazy.” The words came slow and sullen. They left her exhausted, and she hoped that Zuko would keep his mouth shut but very stupid people were always talking. She tried to steady her breath, to find it in her stomach, but it fluttered and flapped like the pathetic moths who flew too close to the candle flames and died, burning. 

Zuko dipped his head to try and meet her eye. “Not even a Zuzu, huh?” 

She bared her teeth, and Zuko flinched away, his eyes fixed on the wall in front of them. “The others don’t think I should trust you. They think this—“ he shrugged – “docility is a game you’re playing. A trick. One of your lies, because you always lie, Azula, you always do.” He hesitated for a moment, and Azula thought he was going to ask her if it was—but then he must have realized how stupid a question that would be as he clicked his mouth shut. His throat moved up and down as he swallowed.  

Azula raised her arms so that the sleeves fell to her elbow. The cool air pricked her skin. “A princess always admits defeat.” She settled deeper into the bed, clutching one of the pillows to her stomach. “Just remember that it wasn’t you, Zuzu.” 

“It was Katara.” He smiled at her name. 

Azula threw the pillow at him, and it smacked him in the face, his reflexes too dulled with thoughts of her to catch it. He didn’t get it. Nobody understood. It wasn’t Katara who had defeated her—it had been almost not being good enough. 

“So we’re back to not talking again. Okay.” Zuko took a breath. “The Avatar took Father’s bending away. He’s in a cell now, which is why he hasn’t come to see you.” 

Why would he even want to see her when she had so transparently failed to keep the Fire Nation safe in his absence? Zuko didn’t know anything at all.  

But she could make it up to her father—she could rectify her mistakes. She raised her palm, found her breath, and— 

For the first time, Zuko looked at her. His eyes traced the shape of her face, found the line of her hand and followed it to her heart. “Have you considered that your bending would come back if you weren’t trying to kill me all the time?” 

He raised his hand to hers, so that their fingers almost touched at their tips. His hand was larger than hers—it had always been, but it hadn’t meant anything. She’d always bested him where it mattered.  

Calluses hardened his palm where he wielded his swords. Her hand was smooth, the skin soft. Only yesterday the servants had scrubbed the dead skin from her, made her smell new and clean.  

Their hands were touching now—palm to palm, fingers to fingers, though his were bent at the knuckles so that their tips connected. He pressed a rhythm into her skin, something they had done when they listened to the players on Ember Island, when their mother and father had been with them, before the memories turned depressing. 

She snatched her hand away, and scuttled back away from him so that she was pressed against the headboard, her legs drawn to her chest.  

“I know you think that he’s worth all this,” Zuko said. “He’s our father after all. But he’s not.” He looked at her, his eyes almost pleading. “He’s turned us against each other. He’s bullied me. He’s bullied you.” He touched his scar. “He may not have put a hand on you, but he’s hurt you, Azula. He’s hurt us both.” 

Her belly burned with hot shame. 

Under his tunic, she saw the burn he had taken for the water bender, for Katara. It looked as if it were older than something he had received only yesterday. 

Someone was always there for him. 

“Sometimes, I forget that you’re younger than me.” His words were soft, and she had to strain to hear him. “We hadn’t seen each other in years—and then you came, tricking me to come to a cell. Then you’re—no, we—are taking Ba Sing Se. You said that you needed me.” He looked at her as if this should mean something. 

“Azula always lies,” she said. “I’m a very good liar.” 

“You are. I think that’s one of the reasons why it just made more sense for you to be the older child, the leader. I think that’s what everybody wanted. You may have been born lucky, but you were still born second. Maybe that’s why you had to be first because you weren’t in the only way that mattered. And if I’m dead—then it doesn’t matter anymore, right? You were the firebending prodigy—the only whose fire was ever blue. And maybe, we should have known then that something was wrong. And now you can’t bend at all, which is a relief, to be honest, because I was going to ask Aang to take your bending away.” Zuko shifted so that he was a little closer to her. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my exile—the one that Father punished me with and the one I inflicted on myself—“ 

“—you broke Mai’s heart. She was insufferable for days. Gloomy and grey and—" and still choosing Zuko over her.  

He looked abashed. “I just meant to say that I learned that everybody deserves a second chance.” He rose from the bed and turned to go. But he paused, looking back at her over his shoulder. “Even you, Azula. Don’t waste it, please.” 

Azula covered her mouth, stomach roiling as she fell off the bed, landing hard enough to bruise her knees. 

It was then that Li and Lo opened the door, their arms filled with baskets. They took away the ceremonial daggers and swords that hung on her walls, the scissors she had used to cut her hair, her perfect, beautiful hair, and packed them neatly in the baskets they then took away. 

They had scooped her room hollow. It was impossible to even tell that it had once been the room of a princess, much less Princess Azula. 

They told her it was not for forever, that the Firelord only feared that she would hurt herself. 

But they lied. 

She knew a prison when she saw one. 

Her brother was putting her in her place just as neatly as Li and Lo had taken her things away. 

She paced the room until the sun disappeared into darkness. She flexed her fingers. Before, the night had reminded her that her bending was weaker now, that she was at the mercy of the sky, of time, of things that she could not touch or even reach because firebenders rose with the sun. 

She had been without bending during the eclipse, but she knew it was the moon’s doing—not her own body’s doing. With the threat of the eclipse came the promise of the comet. 

No promise waited for her now—only the four walls of her room and a closed door and falling under her brother’s shadow. 

When her pacing brought her to the door, she reached out, and turned the knob. It wasn’t locked, like she had been expecting it to be. She donned her robe, pulled the hood low over her face, and slipped into the same slippers she had worn on Ember Island. It was easy to sneak out, to make no noise on the lush carpets that lined the palace hallways. 

It would have been easy to dismiss her as a shadow if any had seen her, but the palace was deserted, its usual occupants too busy sleeping off the lively celebration for the new Firelord, sleeping off the drink they had swallowed as if they did not realize the depths of their own treachery, their own betrayal. Outside, the remnants of ribbons clung to the trees. The lingering smell of hot fire flakes seared the air. The streets were sticky with crushed traces of mangoes. 

They had thrown all of this for him, and the ceremony hadn’t even taken place yet. 

She kicked at a pebble and it skittered across the courtyard.  

They would learn, they would pay, once she was in a position to teach them. 

There had been no celebration for Azula. There had been no one. No crowd. No dignitaries from the other kingdoms. No celebration. No laughter.  

It had been meaningless, until Zuko had showed up to stop her and steal the Nation from her. 

She twisted the robe tighter around her, quickening her pace as she approached the prison that had once contained their treacherous Uncle. She stared up and up its high tower. Of course, Father would be there. Of course he would. And when she found him, her bending would come back, and she would be able to burn through the lock, and she would free him, and then they would burn Zuko’s nation and his people to the ground. 

She would regain what she had lost, what was hers.  

This had been her father’s gift to her, and what had he ever given Zuko but his scorn and a scar? 

Azula plucked a torch from the wall, holding her palm before the flame. It warmed her, and it burned her. It was as familiar as her name on her lips, and she closed her eyes, breathing in the flickering smoke as deep as she could before coughing it back up.  

She climbed the winding stairs until she reached the very top because Zuko would have wanted to put their father there to discourage ill-advised rescue attempts. 

As if a high room in a tall tower could stop her when she had brought low the walls of Ba Sing Se. 

Her father sat caged in a cell, huddled in a grey cloak that had once been red. Azula’s skin prickled in goosebumps from the chill, and she shivered. 

She fell to her knees before the cell, jiggling the lock so it clanked against the bars. Her father stirred at the sound, his cloak falling so that she could see his bare shoulders. 

“Azula,” he said. His voice was cracked and hoarse as if he had not used it for an age. “Is that you?” 

She raised her finger to her lips—just because she had slipped past the guards didn’t mean they weren’t listening. Perhaps they were sleepy with generous cups of rice wines, perhaps they weren’t. She held the iron lock in her hand, her thumbs circling its gaping hole. 

The blind Earth Bender probably could have handled this no problem. Not even the Dai Li had been able to bend metal. A flash of irritation seared through her. 

Why hadn’t they learned? What if she had need of a metal bender, as she did now?  

She remembered that she had banished them, dismissed them from her service.  

A shadow fell over her, and she glanced up at her father, at the towering length of him. “Didn’t you bring the key?” he said. “Didn’t you take it from your brother?” 

Her eyes flickered downward, her mouth curling into a snarl. Zuko had been in her room that very day, and she had not seen it on his person, so had not thought to take it from him. 

How could she be so thoughtless? 

But it didn’t matter. She would melt the locks with the fire of her rage. Nothing burned hotter than a blue fire—she had proven it time and again. 

Pressing her palm over the lock, she steadied her breath and— 

A cold breeze shook her, and her father’s had, bitter laugh echoed it. 

“What, did they take your bending too? That would explain much.” 

She braced herself, lips twisting around her teeth, and tried again. 

He kneeled in front of her, reached for her through the bars that he might cup her cheeks in his hands like he hadn’t done since she was small. His hands were cold but warmth flushed her skin, and she closed her eyes as she leaned into him. “Azula,” he whispered. “Daughter. What has become of you?” 

She curled her hands around his wrists.  

“Did the Avatar take your bending too?” he asked again. 

She shook her head, the ragged edge of her hair brushing against their skins. 

“Answer me, Azula,” her father said. He tightened his grip around her until his fingers dug into the base of her scalp, until he pulled uncomfortably at her hair. 

He was going to ruin it. Everybody would be so upset if he ruined her hair. She needed to answer him before he pulled any harder. Azula opened her mouth, her tongue scraping the syllable somewhere from her scorch-burned throat. “No.” 

“Then what happened?” His thumb found the corner of her jaw, that place that leaned into the soft yield of her throat. 

Her hands scrabbled for purchase around his wrists. “I don’t know. The comet—“ words faltered in her mouth. The comet had filled her with energy, crackling, burning, consuming energy that split from her fingertips and cracked air with light and thunder, that left her a smoking, hollow place. 

“You must have been glorious. You, the firebending prodigy, powered by the comet.” He pressed his face against the bars, and they were so close that Azula could feel his breath fall against her face. “So how is it that Zuko was able to defeat you?” 

She clung to his wrists even tighter as it became more difficult to breathe. “I was betrayed,” she whispered. She had cheated first, technically, but that wasn’t the moment of betrayal. She couldn’t name the exact moment, but she knew she had been betrayed—even before Mai had chosen Zuko over her. Her friends had betrayed her. Her family had betrayed her. And now her body betrayed her too. 

“I trusted you, Azula, with the heart of empire, and you let it go. You failed me.” He opened his hands so that her head dropped, her neck craned backwards. Air and blood rushed through her until she was dizzy. She clung to his wrists even tighter as she fought to find her balance, but he jerked his hands back hard, slamming her fingers against the bars. She was forced to let him go. As she rubbed the pain from the bones, her knees shuffled forwards so that she was pressed more closely against the bars even as her father edged away from her, his arms still folded across his chest, his brows overshadowing his eyes, his mouth a gaping sneer. 

“And now you’ve come to me with what? With the empty gesture that you would save me if you could, but only if you had not lost your Dai Li friends, had not lost your nation’s throne, had not lost your status as the Firelord I was so generous to bestow upon you, had not lost to your brother who was never as talented or clever as you—had you not lost your bending though no one stole it from you as mine was stolen.” 

“Father—“ Azula forced the words out. “Please.” Zuko’s parting words circled in her ears. “Please give me a second chance. I will not fail you again. I have always made you proud, doing whatever you’ve asked of me.” 

“You have failed me countless times. You failed to return your brother before he escaped to Ba Sing Se. You failed to properly kill the Avatar, lied to me that it was Zuko who had defeated him so that it would be his own undoing instead of yours. But it is I that pay the price of your failure." He slid down the wall of his tiny cell and turned his face away from her. “You were my greatest hope, Azula. You were supposed to be everything that Zuko was not.” He raised his hand. “I don’t want to see your face again.” 

“—you can’t—“ Azula breathed, her arm snaking through the bars as she reached for her father. “You can’t treat me like that, like—“ Those desperate words sounded so familiar in her ears. She hid her face behind her hair because Zuko had never lost his bending, even when he wandered lost in the Earth Kingdom. He had just refused to use it. 

She should have accepted his challenge to Agni Kai then. When he was eager and stupid and too confident.  

“Compose yourself, Azula.” As he spoke, her returned to her, his strong hands reaching through the bars to hold her, to rest on her shoulders as he had once depended on her to fulfill the jobs he could entrust to no other. “Return when you have regained your bending and can free me from this place.” 

She bowed low. “Yes, Father.” 

Then he turned away from her completely, hiding himself in his faded robes. 

Zuko was waiting for her when she reached the bottom of the tower. “What?” she snarled. “He’s my father too.” 

“Some people would question your loyalties,” he said, smiling at her as if they shared a joke. She said nothing, but quickly outpaced him as she returned to her own rooms, but he was never far behind. 


	2. Interlude: In Loving Memory

Iroh returned from the walls of Ba Sing Se wearing white. As crown prince of the Fire Nation, he was aware that he had failed his father in capturing the great Earth Kingdom city. He had shamed his father, and his grandfather.  

He would never share a cup of jasmine tea with Lu Ten again. 

He walked with his head hung in grief. Thick tears slid down cheeks. He did not see the path before him or the greenery around him. He did not pause to appreciate the fragrance of the blooming fruit trees, nor did he investigate the shrieking sounds of children laughing. 

Azulon would be angry. He would ask, why had Iroh failed? Had he not placed such great hope in his son, his firstborn, to bring such honor and glory to the Fire Nation? 

Had not Lu Ten trusted the judgment and wisdom of his father? How could he have betrayed his own son? 

Iroh wiped his tears away. He would arrive at the palace later in the evening, and he would face his father, his brother. Then there would be Ursa, his nephew, and his niece. 

He patted his pockets. He had forgotten to bring them gifts. There wasn't even a single piece of rice candy in his bags.  

He would ask their forgiveness. They would laugh. Well, Zuko would laugh—he was not sure about Azula. Zuko would kiss his cheek and offer him nuts or peaches from their garden. Azula would—who knew what Azula would do? Perhaps she would laugh after a cold moment. Perhaps she would sneer that she was not a child to be pacified by sweets. 

Something was wrong with that child. There was too much of Ozai in her—he saw it in the hard flash of her eyes, the cruel set of her mouth. 

Did she even care about candy or forgotten gifts? Did she even know how to be a child? He couldn’t tell from the letters that Ursa had written him. She had made no mention of the doll he had sent to Azula, though she had told him how much Zuko had adored the knife.  

When he arrived at the palace, his brother was there to meet him, though Ursa was not by his side. His face was drawn, tightened, and lined with an age that Iroh found surprising. Their embrace was brief, though Ozai did whisper a word of consolation before he put his hands on his shoulders, holding Iroh at arm’s length. “I have news for you.” 

“So much news,” Iroh said. “Is it good?” He had no desire for more bad news.  

Ozai’s face hardened, his eyes gleaming with something sharp. “I suppose it depends on how you felt about our father. He died some days ago. It took us all by surprise.” 

Iroh stepped from the weight of his brother’s palms on his shoulder. “Why am I only learning of this now?” For the first time, he noticed the gold-blazed emblem adorning his brother’s head and wondered what it was doing there. 

“We sent a messenger hawk,” Ozai returned, “but I suppose it failed to deliver its message.”  

Iroh blinked slowly at Ozai. There had been no news that their father was not in good health. And that the throne had been claimed by a younger brother while the eldest was being defeated by the forces of Ba Sing Se—it made one wonder. 

“I suppose this must be such a shock,” Ozai said, “but our father was an old man. And I do believe that treachery eased his passing. Surely you have noticed Ursa's absence?”  

Iroh nodded. “But that she would do such a thing—that I cannot quite believe.” 

Ozai shifted towards him, slinging an arm around his shoulders as he escorted him into the palace, away from the greedy onlookers who waited to see how a spurned brother would react upon finding the throne snatched from him. 

Perhaps Ozai was not without some measure of kindness. 

“Nor could I,” Ozai said. His eyes were downcast, his brow heavy. It was as if he truly grieved. “But we found the poison she used, hidden in plain sight in our quarters. Azulon had her banished on his deathbed. Merciful—“ Ozai’s lip twisted against his teeth – “to the very end.” 

That Ursa would have been so careless to hide her accessories to regicide in their quarters Iroh did not believe. But as they strode down the palace halls lined with soldiers loyal to the prince that had been by their side these last six hundred days while he unsuccessfully besieged the walls of Ba Sing Se, he knew better than to question Ozai’s story. 

“He must have declared you his heir,” Iroh said. “It would have been the most logical choice, as I no longer have a son.” The words fell from his lips, and they lay there at his feet, and he wondered how Ozai could continue to walk all over them, as if they had no more significance than broken glass. 

“I am sorry for such a breach in tradition,” Ozai said. “It was not something that I expected. I cannot imagine what possessed him to do as he did.” He paused then. “I am sorry you had to find out this way.” 

Iroh, too weary to continue, sagged against a pillar. It still surprised him, vaguely, to realize that Ozai was more concerned with how Iroh would take a lost throne. “I understand.” He looked up at Ozai, so tall and so young. His face shifted with surprise, then scorn that Iroh had given in so easily to his schemes. “I am old. My son is dead, my wife is dead. You are young. You have children. Father made the right choice.” 

Ozai nodded. 

Iroh tucked his hands into his sleeves and continued walking. “How are Zuko and Azula handling their mother’s absence and their grandfather’s passing?” 

Ozai huffed something that could have been a laugh, could have been a snort of irritation. "Zuko does not understand, of course. He misses his mother very much, and keeps asking where she could have gone. He cries for her, demands me to explain what has happened. Azula—well, she’s Azula.” His smile seemed almost proud before it vanished. “She and Azulon were close you know—as close as Azulon could be to anyone. Not something we could have predicted when we named her, but it certainly turned out to be appropriate.”  

“Of course,” Iroh said.  

Ozai paused before the entrance to the room in which he held his war councils. “Forgive me, brother. I have urgent business to which I must attend—this business with Ba Sing Se—“ he shook his head. “Your chambers remain the same—untouched since you left them save for when the servants cleaned them.”  

“Your generosity is much appreciated,” Iroh said. They bowed to each other, then parted. Iroh sighed heavily, wishing for a soothing cup of tea. Even a cup of the weakest, coldest tea would be welcome.  

He found his way to his chambers and deposited his single bag onto the bed. He had left with so much—his pai sho board, his combat gear, his regalia armor to be worn in the moment of his victory, his son— 

He shook himself, and peered out the window when he heard children’s voices drifting upwards. A boy and a girl, he thought. 

Azula and Zuko. He leaned farther out the window—but Ozai was nowhere in sight. No adults were. No one who could be considered a caregiver. Iroh leaned against the sill, his breath heavy, his eyes closed until he turned his back on them, changed into something a little more comfortable, and made his way outside. 

He lingered in the shadows of the mimosa trees, already blooming with their pink delicate flowers. He plucked one and slipped it behind his ear.  

Both Azula and Zuko were by the duck pond. Zuko sat by the water, his face buried in his knees while Azula stood over him. 

“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” Azula said, her voice shrill. “Look around. Now we’re the prince and princess. Everybody wants to be us, but they can't!”  

Zuko took a moment to lift his head. His cheeks were streaked with tears. “Are you crazy? Lu Ten should be prince, but he’s dead—but why do you care? It’s not like you wanted him or Uncle Iroh to come back alive anyway.” 

Iroh held his hand over his heart, his teeth biting into his lips. 

Azula paced around him so that she stood by his other side. Zuko turned his face away. “Don’t pretend you don’t benefit from this. Things will be better now, you’ll see. Unless you don't understand how no one can stop us. After all, Father will expect you to act like a prince now.” She clasped her hands under her chin, a cruel smile carving itself from her lips. “Are you a Dumb-Dumb, Zuzu?”  

She had the same hungry look that burned in Ozai’s eyes.   

Zuko pushed himself to his feet, his hands heavy on Azula’s shoulders as he shook her. “Mom’s gone, and you don’t even care. She could be dead!” 

Azula easily shoved him away from her, and he staggered back. “Oh, please. I don’t know why you’re being so dramatic.” She found a smooth stone at her feet and skipped it towards the flock of turtle-ducks, scattering them right and left as she laughed. 

Zuko kicked the next stone out of reach as she bent to pick it up. “Mom said not to do that!” 

Azula looked around, exaggerating the movements of her neck, the wideness of her eyes. “Didn’t you just say that she was gone?” Her voice lowered into a whisper. “Forever?” She loomed over her brother even though he was taller than her. “So who’s going to stop me—you?”  

Zuko turned from her, kicking at a tuft of grass. “This is your fault somehow—I just know it.” 

“My fault?” She laughed so hard she held her stomach. “What could I have done?” She laughed again, shrill and high, covering her face with her hand. 

Zuko whirled on her, his face red. “Maybe you’re a monster, just like Mom always said. Maybe you’re not really ours at all—just someone somebody left with us because they didn’t want you anymore, and the only person who’d take you in was Mom because she was good and kind.”  

Her laughter disappeared, leaving only a smirk. “Look how that turned out for her.” 

Zuko’s mouth fell open, as if he waited for the right words to come but there was no word that would mean what he needed it to mean. “I hate you,” he said, his voice quiet and hard. 

Azula kicked his feet out from under him so that he fell to his knees. She curled her fingers into the cloth around his neck, and hissed, “You don’t hate me.” She leaned closer. “You fear me. You fear what you think I’ve done, and what I could do to you without Mom to stop me. You fear me like Mom feared me.” 

She shoved him backwards so that he had to roll in order to regain his balance. He brushed himself off and, without another word, left Azula standing there by the pond, hand on her hip, watching him slip away with her mouth closed, eyes glittering.  

When he was gone, she knelt beside the pond—perfectly still. The turtle-ducks began to cluster in a group once more. Iroh sighed, wiped his eyes, and stepped from the shadow of the trees. 

“You will have to wait a long time for the turtle-ducks to return,” he said, standing beside her. 

“Or I could just come back later and surprise them.” She turned her face up towards him. “They never know when I’m coming.” 

Iroh sat down heavily beside her. He let his fingers play in the cold water, tracing circles against the limpid surface. “It must be hard for them, knowing their home is never safe.” 

“How much did you hear, Uncle?”  

He lifted his hand, flicked the water from his fingers, and tucked it back into his sleeve. The grass was green and coarse. It pricked his skin. “Enough.” 

She stood, and paced around him with her hands clasped behind her back. She was restless, never still. As if she could not stop burning. “I wouldn’t take it personally if I were you,” she said lightly. “It’s just politics and math. It could have been anyone.” She smiled serenely at him. 

“It could have been,” Iroh agreed. But still, it had been his son, Lu Ten. 

“Do you have plans to return to Ba Sing Se, to renew the siege?” 

Iroh bowed his head. “I do not. I believe that I am done with the war.” 

“Isn’t running away from a fight what cowards do?” She turned her face away, possibly to hide the insolence in her eyes. “No wonder grandfather didn’t name you his heir.”  

Iroh frowned at her. “I grieve for my son. He was my only one, and I loved him. The crown will need sons, and your father has Zuko.”  

“My parents—my father doesn't need a son,” she said, her chin high and proud. “Not when he has me." 

“Then I suffer the misfortune of not having a daughter such as yourself,” Iroh whispered. 

Azula tilted her head, and breathed deeply. Fire raged through her hand, sizzling the air. The turtle-ducks cried out in alarm. “There’s no one like me. I’m a prodigy. Father said so.” 

“That I believe.” 

Azula sat beside him, then tugged on his arm so that she could slip her hand in his when it fell free. “You are not at all like I imagined you, Uncle. I imagined a dragon to be so much fiercer—someone who could swallow Ba Sing Se whole or burn it to the ground in revenge instead of coming back home crying.” 

Iroh pulled his hand from hers. “You are not alone in your disappointment, I’m sure.” Though perhaps he alone grieved for his son. They sat in silence a little while longer, and Iroh spoke before Azula could find something cruel to say. “What do you know about your mother, Azula? Where has she gone?” 

“Oh, Uncle,” Azula said, lowering her head though her eyes remained fixed on his face. “I’m sure you know more about that than me, as my father insists that it’s a matter for the grown ups.” Then, for the first time, she seemed to hesitate. “What has he told you?” 

Iroh bowed his head. He could not imagine what had gone on in the months he had been away. He wondered that he had heard no word of this in Ursa’s letters. Of course, she had been concerned for Azula, of course she had mentioned that she seemed more like her father. But this cruelty surprised him. It scared him. “He has told me enough.” 

Her face fell in disappointment.  

After sitting for a little while in silence, Azula rose and left Iroh behind, staring into the pool.

Slowly, the turtle-ducks came, and he thought of how he and his son had once fed them, before the war had called away.

He closed his eyes, and wept.


	3. What Ty Lee Said

Zuko’s coronation took place the next day. Azula watched from her window, her palm parting the soft gauze of her curtain as Zuko took his place on the platform beneath the watching eyes of the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Water Tribe. The gold, multi-tendriled flame glinted from his top-knot as he addressed the nations, though she could not hear him clearly. 

Her eyes did not linger on Zuko, but on the people before him—how they did not bow, how they did not seem afraid in his presence. She remembered when her father had been crowned, how everyone had cowered at his feet, not daring to look upon him. 

The Avatar, so small even in his too-big robes, stood beside him. They embraced each other, and she clutched the sill with her first. 

They had once united against the Avatar and now Zuko greeted him as if he were family? As if they were friends? 

When he ruined everything? When he had brought their great nation low? He had always been a thorn in their side, and now the thorn had buried itself in their nation’s heart, and Zuko welcomed him as a brother. 

Azula abandoned the window, and began to pace the room even as she remembered to compose herself as her father was always telling her to do. 

She closed her eyes and began one of the more intermediate firebending sets. Nothing happened as she had expected, but her body settled into the familiarity of it, her breath focused on the rise and fall of her stomach, and she found herself beginning to calm. 

Whenever she regained her bending her body would be ready for it. She would find that piece of herself that had been carved from her flesh. The scar burned into her by the imprisonment of her father, by the disappearing comet, would heal like it had never been.  

In the meantime, she could not stay here trapped like some pet to be thought of only when necessary, when to be fed or to be walked or tamed. 

She waited for Li and Lo to come to her, the only people Azula imagined that Zuko had allowed to stay from their old life. They laughed, giggling like the girls they had been ages ago, girls who had swam in the waters of Ember Island, girls who had been young and beautiful. 

Their breaths smelled of mango as they whispered secrets in each other’s ears, and it wasn’t until Azula cleared her throat that they jerked to her attention. 

“Li and Lo, right?” Azula said. She didn’t want to speak, and her palms itched as she scraped at her skin with her blunted nails. “Those are your names, aren’t they?” 

They nodded. They had expected a quiet, docile princess, still reeling from the shock of her loss, lying abed as if she were dead or worse.  

They had underestimated her.  

“I want to speak to my brother. To the Firelord. If he can spare the time for his disgraced, dishonored sister.” 

She smiled when they scurried from her room, fumbling in their old lady slippers, to bring Zuko to her as quickly as they could.

Azula waited a long time for her brother to come to her. He was demonstrating that he didn’t have to listen and come when she called. Well, she’d been playing that game since she was small, and he’d never be good at it like she had been. 

After all, who, between the two of them, had actually sat on a throne before?  

Nausea roiled through her belly as she paced in spiraling corkscrews in her room. Her bare feet sank into the plush carpets that slowly flattened under her weight as she turned and turned. 

It was dark when there was a soft knock at her door. Interesting—Zuko certainly had never made a habit of knocking whenever he came into her room, demanding to know about what terrible thing she had done now. But then, neither had she, like when she had actually taken the trouble to warn him. “Come in,” she said, pausing her pacing for a moment. She must be still, serene, composed. He must not see her like this, she thought, as she ran her fingers through her hair.

But it wasn’t Zuko who had come to her—it was Ty Lee, her long braid swinging over her shoulder, her head poking around the frame of the door as she blinked her brown eyes at Azula. Each bat of her lashes flayed Azula’s skin as the floor seemed to slide from under her feet, stomach lurching as her balance shifted, and she swayed as her hand reached for the wall that she might not fall.  

Ty Lee no longer wore pink nor the nimble slippers that allowed her to walk the tight ropes but rather kyoshi green, the fabric rustling softly as she fell to her knees and said, “Princess Azula.” 

Azula clung to the words as she slowly turned her attention towards her, as her ragged nails scraped against the palm of her hand. This was the person who had betrayed her, who had chosen Mai over her, who had taken away her bending. Suspicion hardened her mouth. Was Ty Lee smiling or smirking or laughing at her after behind the words? It was hard to tell with all the face paint. 

How Mai would hate to see her like this. How did she stand it?

“What are you doing down there, groveling? Didn’t I say I never wanted to see your face again?” She waited a few moments. "You're embarrassing yourself."  

Promptly, Ty Lee settled onto her heels and flipped her fan so that it veiled her face.  

It was insolent of her. But then, Ty Lee had always been a little insolent even when she obeyed her orders—Azula could see that now, in retrospect. 

Azula reached out and plucked the fan from Ty Lee's loose grip. She threw it away. 

“I just wanted to see you again,” Ty Lee said. “I miss you, Princess Azula.” 

Azula put her back to Ty Lee, her arms folded. She didn’t like Ty Lee dressed like this--not this time. Wasn't she a Fire Nation girl? She wondered if she had showed them how to take someone's bending away. 

It was a secret that Ty Lee had never shared with Azula. Not that Azula had ever asked for it—but she shouldn’t have had to ask for it.  

Ty Lee should have just given it to her. 

Azula chewed the inside of her her mouth as she watched Ty Lee's reflection through the window. 

“You’re angry,” Ty Lee said. Her voice trembled. Her eyes threatened to overspill with tears. 

Azula squeezed hers shut. She went to smooth her hair, and her hand fell to empty space, still expecting the long lengths of hair even though they were gone (because she had cut it herself).  

“Guards!” she called, but there was no answer to her summons. They would not obey her command that they drag Ty Lee away, not as they had once done before. But she knew they were there—she had heard them switch places with each other. 

Ty Lee still remained on her knees—but not in something resembling a bow. She sat at ease, her eyes raised, watching Azula. 

“We were unstoppable,” Ty Lee said. “We three. You, Mai, and me.” She hesitated for a moment. “You don’t have to be alone, locked up in here—we could be all that again.” 

Azula breathed deeply, guiding air to her belly, but there was nothing within her, not even a whisper or a promise of embers half-buried in ash. There was nothing but her empty body, scooped hollow when her father had abandoned her, broken open when Katara had defeated her. Everything that mattered had flowed through those shattered pieces, and then washed away when Katara had released her from the water. 

She had lost everything. The kingdom, the throne, her bending. It was all Ty Lee's fault. 

Her eyes flash opened, and she jutted her jaw, grinding her teeth against each other as she bit down the snarl that rose to her lips—the snarl that once would have meant something, that had banished a half dozen people who should have stayed away and yet they returned—and there was Ty Lee still sitting on the floor as if she belonged there.   

And yet her muscles were tensed, as if she were ready for a fight if Azula were to bring one to her. 

As if she would humiliate herself again. As if she had anything left for Ty Lee to ruin.

“You were going to burn, Mai,” Ty Lee said, apparently undeterred by Azula’s silence. But that was Ty Lee—never able to take a hint. “You would have broken us apart.” Her face fell. “You made that happen anyway, but I know that you would have regretted burning Mai.” She smiled, desperately. “I did you a favor!”  

“Regret?” Azula said, forcing herself to smile. “You don’t know anything—you’re just a stupid girl, and you always will be.” 

Ty Lee laughed. “You sound like Mai. She was always so afraid of being like those stupid girls. I always wondered what she meant by that.” 

Azula dug her bare toes into the carpet, her fingers twisting through her robes. “I’m not like Mai or like you—and you could never hope to be like me.” 

“You are so beautiful and so perfect,” Ty Lee said, nodding her head in agreement. “But trapped in this room? I could never hope for that. It’s not even a proper room anymore. It looks sad. Where are all your things, Azula?” 

Frowning, Azula clutched her robe to her, her arms folded tightly across her belly. She stared at the space her mirror should have been, the one she had broken when she had seen her mother for the first time in years—after wondering what had happened to her all this time. She could still hear her mother's soft voice.  

 _You always_ _had such beautiful hair. I didn't want to miss my own daughter's_ _coron_ _ation_ _._   

Like she had missed her son's. 

For a moment, she wanted to ask if Zuko had seen her too, but she knew he had not. It had been nothing--it had been a dream, a hallucination. But she wasn't like what they said, she wasn't crazy.

But still—she couldn't help but think about her mother's fingers in her hair, how she would have braided it, how she would have piled it high to receive the burning flame, if she had really been there.  

There was a hesitant touch on her elbow, and Azula stared at Ty Lee’s bare fingers on her skin. Her other hand held the gloves she had pulled from her hands. Azula jerked away but Ty Lee followed the motion like water and nausea rose in Azula’s belly as she stared resolutely away.  

“Do you remember when we were in the Drill when we first attacked Ba Sing Se—and you ordered us to follow Katara and Sokka while you went after the Avatar? They went into the drainage pipe—and I, pretty Ty Lee all in pink, jumped in after them?” Ty Lee wrapped her strong, thin fingers loosely around Azula’s wrist as she stood on tiptoe to whisper in her ear. “I did all that because you told me to.” 

Azula pulled away from her, and this time, Ty Lee let her. “You’re exhausting me.” 

Azula folded her arms, hands tucked into the crooks of her elbows, and leaned her head against the cold stone of the wall. Her pulse pitter-pattered in the soft yield of her throat, in that same space where her father had squeezed, and her eyes blinked in time with it.  

Ty Lee drifted beside her. She had found her fan and was fluttering it over her mouth as she leaned against the wall, her elbow braced against it. It was the same pose she had adopted when she was trying to teach Azula how to talk to boys—as if she had needed any help.  

“Tell me you’re sorry,” Azula said, her eyes fixed on the bed, the covers all wrinkled, not neat at all. “Tell me you won’t do it ever again.” It would mean something even though the words would be useless. She had lost her bending, she was a prisoner, a princess in name only. She had no power, no way to inspire fear to give the apology real meaning.  Maybe if she had burned Mai, then maybe—but no. Her hands folded into fists. There was nothing. She had nothing. She was nothing. She had seen it in her father's eyes. 

Ty Lee flicked her fan closed. She crept even closer, so that they were very nearly pressed together as she entwined her fingers through Azula’s. And before she could stop herself, before she could think twice, such a bad habit Ty Lee was, Azula did the same. 

“I’m sorry,” Ty Lee whispered. “I’m sorry that this has happened to you. I’m sorry that I hurt you.” 

Azula finally let herself meet Ty Lee’s gaze. Her eyes were soft, and there was a flush cresting the smooth rises of her cheeks. The curve of her mouth peeked like something shy above the gilded edge of her fan, even though that had never been Ty Lee. Azula swallowed, unable to look away even though she had never wanted to see her again. “Prove you're sorry—you took it away once, you can give it back.” 

Ty Lee smiled sadly. “I don’t know, Azula." 

“Then try. Try it on me,” Azula said. She forced her voice to be soft, she pushed in close to Ty Lee. She guided her hand to the point where she had first struck her, flinching as their knuckles grazed her skin. It still ached from memory of the blow, though no bruise had ever formed. It still hurt. It would always hurt. “And everything will be forgiven.” 

For the first time in Azula’s memory, Ty Lee, as she stood on tiptoe, whispered in the shell of her ear, “No.”  

This time, Ty Lee let her go when Azula wrenched her hands from Ty Lee’s hold. “What did you say to me?” Anger clawed at her throat, and she gasped through it as she raised her fist, prepared to strike before remembering that she could not, that Ty Lee would defeat her, and she could not—would not--let that happen again. 

“I won’t try,” Ty Lee said, her hands clasped in front of her chest. “You don’t understand, Azula. It’s just so much easier when we don’t have to worry about your blue fire or your lightening or that you’ll banish us because we said something you didn’t like. We have other people in our lives besides you.”  

“I am your princess!” Azula said. 

“You are.” Ty Lee pulled on her gloves again. “You’ll always be a Fire Nation princess to me.” She raised her hand, and tucked a strand of Azula’s hair behind her ear. “I just don’t want to be afraid of you anymore.” 

Azula slapped Ty Lee’s hand away. “Is that why you joined the Kyoshi Warriors? So that you don’t have to be afraid? Haven't you always been afraid that someone would look at you and see one of your pathetic sisters instead, that'd you'd always be part of a set? Look at you—I would never be able to tell you apart from any one of them!” Her skin crawled as she saw Ty Lee slip her fan once more into her belt.  

Ty Lee shook her head at Azula. “You’re upset. I think that I should go.” 

“Yes, go!” Azula shouted at Ty Lee’s retreating back. She dragged her hand over her face, pulling out the hair that Ty Lee had tucked behind her ear. It was hard to breathe. She held up her hand as if expecting to see a mark that Ty Lee had left behind. But there was nothing but her clammy skin, shaking as if she were old and trembling. She hid her hands in her robe and paced as she waited for Zuko to heed her summons. 

It would have been too easy, she supposed, if Ty Lee would have restored her bending. 

Well, Zuko had always said she’d had it easy. He was wrong, again. Like he always was. 

She waited for what seemed hours. She paced until her strength failed her.  She practiced the firebending sets she had once taught Zuko until sweat streamed from her body, soaking her clothes and skin.  

Nothing happened.  

There was not enough of her to fill her body.  

She remembered her blue scorching fire that had once surged through her, that had once destroyed entire kingdoms, that had scarred him. She shouted and screamed for Zuko as she fell to her knees, as her hands clawed themselves into fists that tore her flesh, looking deeper and deeper for that missing spark, for that blue heart. 

 


	4. Interlude: When They Were Young

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers, but I took some liberties with Ty Lee's backstory.

Ty Lee first went to the Fire Nation Academy because she had needed to get away from her family—the sixth of six daughters, each one with their brown hair, their brown eyes, their soft jaws, and their sweet faces.

She also went because she was tired of struggling. 

Her parents were poor. So poor that when she had come to the academy, they had laughed at her, and told her to go home to the rest of the peasants and nonbenders, or to try her luck in the Earth Kingdom colonies. 

But not even Ty Lee had wanted to go so far from home as that. 

It was true that they had begged—being poor and hungry, Ty Lee and her family were used to begging. They worked hard but it wasn't enough to feed all those hungry mouths. The soldiers in service to the Fire Lord always demanded more and more, so that Ty Lee was learning trades at a young age from those who would teach her. She did what she could to help her family scrape survival from a village destroyed yearly by shaking earths, and whose air was continuously darkened with ash that made their elderly cough for each and every breath. 

But despite Ty Lee’s pleas, the Academy still told her no, she could not join them. This was an Academy for Young Ladies, not nonbending peasant people. She showed them what she knew of the human body, learned from the healers in their small, tiny village, who had learned to keep their folk alive from the environment that tried so hard to kill them. They had scoffed at her. 

The Head Mistress was already gesturing for the guards to drag her away even though they needed her like she needed them—but they paused when a shrill voice called out for them to stop. 

Ty Lee looked around until her eyes fell on a Fire Nation girl, just a little shorter than her. Her top-knot was neat, tightly bound with a simple metal flare of fire. Her clothes were belted neatly at her waist with a deep red sash—very fine, very thick. There was subtle embroidery along the cuffs. Ty Lee’s fingers already itched to find where she kept the valuables on her person—to pluck them and sell them for a warm meal that would fill her belly all the way. 

They must have known who the girl was because the guards listened and the face of the head mistress paled. 

The girl came to Ty Lee. There was a look of aloof detachment in her face, but still she held out her hand in order to help Ty Lee rise to her feet. “Why so rude?” she asked to the guards. "Isn't the Academy supposed to teach us good manners?" 

Ty Lee trembled to see a girl who couldn’t have been older than her—a girl of six or seven years old—hold such command. Her mouth filled with water, and though she knew she was hungry and thirsty, she had not realized that her throat was a desert, and the attention this girl commanded was the purest water. 

She could drink from this girl for an age. 

“She just showed you something amazing,” the girl continued, brushing a bit of dirt from Ty Lee’s weather worn pink trousers. “And you throw her in the streets because you think you're too good for her?” Her lips curled in scorn. 

She turned back to Ty Lee, patting her shoulders so she stood straight. “They think they're wise, don't they?” Then she turned from Ty Lee, and held her arms wide as if she held an offering. “I have a proposal. I am Azula, daughter of Ozai, son of Azulon—surely those names are familiar to you?” She said it sweetly, but the smile that played around her mouth was sharp, cunning. It made Ty Lee’s skin prickle, and she wondered if she should flee or if she should stay. 

This girl was no noble. She was of the royal family. And she had noticed her, some peasant from the poorest parts of the Fire Nation. 

Ty Lee was unsure how she managed to keep breathing. 

Azula paused just long enough for the surrounding people to shuffle uncomfortably in their boots. “She and I duel. If she beats me, the firebending prodigy—“ pillars of orange flame erupted from her palms—“then she will attend the Academy with me.” 

One of the women raised their hands. 

“Yes” Azula said, after several moments had passed. 

“What if she loses?” 

Azula shrugged. “Then do what you were going to do and send her home.” She turned back to Ty Lee and bowed, ever so slightly. “What's your name?” 

“Ty Lee,” she said, returning the bow. “Thank you, thank you so much.” 

“For what?” Azula said. “You haven’t won, yet.” 

Ty Lee dropped into an offensive stance, her fingers crooked and waiting. “Just for giving me the chance.” 

“We’ll see about that,” Azula said. 

And for the first time, Ty Lee faltered. Because what if this was just a trap? What if Azula just saw her as another person to humiliate, to remind her exactly who she was in the larger scheme of things—that she was nothing but but a poor, lowly peasant and that was all she would ever be? What if, even if she did win, Azula wouldn’t keep her word, or people would realize they were taking orders from a six year old, royalty or no? 

But she set her jaw, and dodged neatly out of the way as Azula opened with a languid fireball. 

“Is that it?” Ty Lee said. She hadn’t even felt a flicker of heat. 

Azula smoothed the strands of hair that framed her face. “You seemed distracted. That was just a test to give you a chance to catch up. I want a real challenge. Don't you?” 

And then she volleyed a fierce set of fire at Ty Lee, and Ty Lee lunged forward, bent low. She broke Azula’s root, and she staggered backwards. Ty Lee gripped Azula's arm, and pulled her shoulder back so that she could more easily access the vulnerable pressure points that would weaken Azula's chi. It had been something she had been experimenting with, but she hadn't tried it on an actual bender yet. She knuckled Azula hard, and flitted away. Azula's fire flickered into a ribbon of smoke. For a moment, her mouth twisted into a snarl that revealed her teeth, but then it was gone with that strange cold smile as she raised her hands in surrender.  

Ty Lee had expected a tougher fight from a royal firebending prodigy. She stood back, uncertain.  

“I know when I’ve been beaten,” Azula said. “Well done.” She turned back to the school adminstrators. "Please make the necessary arrangements for Ty Lee to begin attending immediately." 

The school administrators, refusing to meet Azula's eyes, muttered that there was no possible way that Ty Lee would be able to afford to attend such an establishment.  

Azula took a step towards them. “You made a promise to a member of the royal house. Are you going to break that promise?” 

“But—“ 

Azula held out her hand, and they ceased talking. “My father will see to the necessary payments. For now, make sure that she has a place in the year’s classes.” 

A stunned silence descended as the two girls made their way from the public view. “I don’t even know how to thank you,” Ty Lee whispered. It still didn’t feel quite real to her. Her sudden switch in fortune had left her dizzy, breathless.  

“Oh there’s no need,” Azula said. “I imagine that we are going to be friends for a very long time. My father will make your father a noble of some sort, of course, so our friendship won't be inappropriate.” Her cheeks flushed. "We can do that you know. We can do anything we want because we're of the royal family, and the Firelord is my grandfather." She looked proud when she said it. She looked like someone important. 

Ty Lee stopped and threw her arms around Azula. It took Azula a few moments for her to return the embrace, though her arms were loose and stiff around Ty Lee's shoulders. “I’d like to be your friend—I’d like that very much.” 

She escorted Azula to her quarters, where she was told to meet her tomorrow morning. Sure, Ty Lee didn’t have a place to sleep tonight, but the night was warm and food was easily snatched and it wouldn’t be forever. There was an end in sight, now, and she hadn’t thought that would be possible—not for her. 

They were going to be a noble family. They would have plenty to eat. They would have fine clothes—clothes just as fine as Azula's.  

As she walked down the streets, looking for a good place to sleep that night, a girl with shiny black hair cut in sharp bangs across her forehead pushed herself from the shadows, blocking Ty Lee. Her face was pale and sallow, her mouth turned down. This was not the face of a girl who smiled often. Her voice was honed and sharp like drawn twin blades. “You’re not bothered that Azula let you win.” 

“You startled me,” Ty Lee said. She had already realized that Azula had lost on purpose. It bothered her a little, because Azula seemed like the girl who didn't like to lose. Which meant the game she was playing was a little more complicated than a schoolyard duel. But like everything else with her life, she would worry about that when it became a real problem instead of just a question looking for an answer. “It wasn’t really about the fight.” Ty Lee shrugged. 

The girl fell in step beside Ty Lee. “The duels the students start are boring,” she said. “They fight like stupid girls. The stakes make it a little more interesting, I suppose. I know yours—but I don’t know Azula’s.” 

Ty Lee thought there was a good chance that whatever arrangement she had entered with Azula would end with both girls getting what they wanted, and that was all that mattered. “She wants friendship,” Ty Lee said. “And that I can easily give. I like making friends. I like having friends. What's your name?”    

It took a moment but then the girl sniffed. "Mai."   

“We should be friends,” Ty Lee said.  

Mai made a skeptical noise, but said nothing.  

Ty Lee looped her hands around Mai's elbow. "I think we're all going to be such good friends. You, me, and Azula." She knew they would. She knew that together, they could do anything, that no one would try to stop them, that no one would think of hurting them ever again.


	5. The Proposal

When Azula heard the door open, she scrambled to her feet so that no one would see her abject on the floor, spent from her exertions, spent from waiting. 

“You called,” Zuko said. 

She could see their Uncle Iroh behind him, his eyes hard, his brow frowning.  

“I did, Firelord Zuko,” she said, bowing as she had once bowed before her father—though, perhaps, not quite so low. “Please, sit.” She gestured to bed, the only piece of furniture that remained to her, but both Zuko and Uncle shook their heads, so she sat down herself. 

“What do you want, Azula?” Uncle Iroh’s hands were tucked in his sleeves, and he held himself distant, as always. 

She took a calming breath. It was just like the old days that weren’t so long ago, Iroh and Zuko working together against her. Even when Zuko was on her side, he wasn’t really—not with his Uncle’s words of wisdom lingering in his ears. For a moment, she was grateful for her exhaustion—she hoped it would dull how they perceived her. “What is to become of me, Lord Zuko?” 

Her brother frowned. He still did not wear his hair as Father had. It hung low, tangled. As if he hadn’t even taken the time to have it combed. Disgraceful. She smoothed her own hair as she waited. 

“I don’t know,” Zuko said. “I haven’t decided yet.” 

Azula tried to make her voice gentle. “I have been here for days. I do not take kindly to being confined in my room.” She tried a smile. Once, it had been so easy to smile. Of course, they hadn't been very nice smiles, according to those who saw them, according to people like her mother. 

Uncle Iroh stirred himself. “You pursued the Avatar, attempted to kill Aang, conquered Ba Sing Se, and then tried to kill Zuko. Where else should you be?.” 

“And Zuko also participated during three of those events, and yet he sits the throne while I am grounded like a child.” She examined her fingers and missed her long, sharp nails. “As I recall, we were mutually attempting to kill each other at the time—or are you saying that you would have caught me with the Avatar’s flying bison when we both fell from the Western Air Temple?” Azula shook her head at Zuko. “I distinctly recall you watching me as I fell until I saved myself. You would have let me die, don't try to deny it.”  

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose.  

“And let’s not forget how many times Zuko captured the Avatar.” Not that he had ever been able to keep him, but she wouldn't taunt him with that now. 

“But I regret my past actions against the Avatar—I was. I was trying to figure some stuff out about me and my father and—“ 

Azula feigned a yawn, and smiled when Zuko’s eyes flashed with something like irritation. She watched carefully for him to firebend. She remembered how it was in those early days, when he was easily angered, easily frustrated, all revealed in flame and smoke. But now—there was nothing. 

“What Zuko is trying to say,” Iroh said, coming to the rescue as always, “is that it’s slightly different for him.” 

“Of course it is,” Azula said sweetly. “He’s the Firelord.” 

Iroh shook his head. “No. He found out what kind of man he was on his own. And he changed—for the better. He balanced the two sides of himself that are always at war within him. And it won’t always be easy, but he has come a long way in becoming the man I knew he could be.” 

Zuko turned toward his Uncle in a display of affection so disgusting that Azula could barely contain her revulsion. 

“I heard about those two sides, I think,” Azula said, tapping her chin as she rose and began to pace in a slow circle around them both. “Of course, it's not common knowledge that Sozin was once friends with the Avatar, though that changed when he succeeded in killing him once, and failed killing him again. And I suppose it's even less commonly known that our dear mother was a descendent of Avatar Roku.” She paused in front of them, and clasped her hands together against her chest. “But Avatar Roku and Sozin are in my lineage as well. I, too, am at war with myself." She slid to the floor, bent herself prostrate like her brother had done when he begged his father for mercy. “I deserve the same chance my brother had. The Avatar said that I was out of balance.” She paused, preparing to say the one thing they would be unable to deny her lest they prove themselves hypocrites.“Give me the chance to restore my honor.” 

She glanced up. Their arms were folded, their mouths hard. She set her jaw. 

“Give me the chance to restore the honor of my family. Of our nation. Of myself.” She forced herself to remain still. “Why should Zuko do this alone? We share the same blood, the same past, the same legacy. We’re brother and sister, after all. It's important that we share this burden together.” 

Zuko’s voice sounded pained as he said her name. 

But Uncle pushed him away. “Do not trust her, Zuko. She does not believe in honor, and she never will. How many times has she lied to you?” 

"Azula always lies," Zuko said, as if by rote.

It was true, of course. Time and time again, she had lied, and time and time again, Zuko had believed her, like when she had told him his father wanted him back. But there were times where she didn't lie, because the truth was so much better. "I didn't lie when I told you that I needed you in Ba Sing Se," she said. "I didn't lie when I said that only you could restore your honor. I didn't lie when I told you that Father was going to kill you. I'm not lying about this." She looked up at them and waited. Their uncle shook his head, but Zuko had his bowed, as if he were considering her words. 

“And what do you propose?” Zuko finally said. "What do you want?" 

Her knees were aching from being bowed so long, but she allowed no sign to pass over her face. “Anything you wish. I'm sure you'll be able to think of something suitable.” 

“Hah,” Zuko said, his voice dry, and she almost smiled.  

She kept her head low, her eyes fixed on his boots. The silence hung heavy against her neck. Then the unbound fringe of Zuko’s hair fell into her sight, and she lifted her eyes to see that he was kneeling in front of her. It wasn't right that a Firelord should kneel. Father would never have done so. 

“Do you know where Mom is?” 

Azula frowned, a familiar itch returning to stitch itself under her skin. “Didn’t you ask me that when we were kids, and I said that no one knew?” 

“I know that Father had her banished. He told me when I visited him.” 

Azula breathed carefully. That Zuko had also visited their father—something strange and terrible and vulnerable settled somewhere in her chest, and she pushed it away. 

“If he told me that, surely he told you more,” Zuko said. "You were always his favorite." 

Once that would have been true, but lately she had come to realize she had fallen from her father's confidence, that she was not the trusted daughter she had always imagined herself to be for so long, and as Zuko imagined still. Her mouth dried up as her hands clenched into fists. It was just like that time he hadn’t told her until the last second that he was leaving her behind, that he was crowning himself Phoenix King and leaving her as Firelord in his place, as if he'd even need a Firelord once he had proclaimed himself ruler over every nation.  

He never told her anything. He just—he just used her ideas and then he— 

“Azula? Didn’t he ever tell you where he banished her?” 

She picked at her nails, cleaned them of dirt that was long gone from the last time she had cleaned them as she waited for Zuko to come. “Why would he tell me anything?” 

“Because you both hated her,” Zuko said.  

“Oh, Zuko. You overestimate my feelings towards her. I don't care what happened to her.” She met his eyes. “You know she is probably dead or else she would have found you during the course of your three year banishment. I’m sure you would have had a lot to talk about.” 

Zuko sat back, his wrists dangling from his knees. He looked away from her. “That is what I thought as well.” 

“Zuko—“ Iroh put his hands on Zuko’s shoulders. 

Azula watched as something soured in her stomach. She wondered how much Zuko knew about what had been done that night, so long ago. She wondered if he knew as much as she did. “She must have done something terrible to be banished.”  

“Whatever she did, she did it for me.“ Zuko sounded vaguely defensive. “She said as much when I saw her last, when she came to say goodbye. And Ozai said the same.” 

“What do you know about that?” Iroh said, looking at her as if he knew she was holding something back. 

Azula studied the ground between her knees. She played with one of the threads in her robe, twisting it between her fingers as she pulled and pulled. It was not a night she thought about frequently. She didn't like thinking about it. It reminded her of Mom pulling on her arm until it hurt. It reminded her of how she had told Mom about Zuko, what she had heard Azulon demand of their father. It reminded her of how Father had agreed to do it. It reminded her of how Azulon had died, and how she had seen him one more time before it happened. It reminded her of how she had pulled Zuko with her behind the curtains, and how he should have stayed with her so that he could have seen what she had seen and understood how much stronger he would need to be. She pulled the thread, stringing it tight around her finger. It made her remember the times when Zuko said they had been happy, though she knew that it was a lie: their family had never been happy, and she knew that because of the things she had seen in hiding. It was depressing, and she hated how thinking back on these things and that night made something inside her cry out without words, like when Ty Lee had betrayed her.  She raised her head and smiled at Uncle Iroh. “I know that she did not come and say goodbye to me before she sneaked away into the night. But then, she always did like Zuko better. She wouldn’t have done what she did for me. Not that I mind because Grandfather Azulon always liked me better and would never have asked for my death. I guess Mom would still be alive if more people liked Zuko just as much as me.”  

They didn’t rise to the bait—not that Azula had expected them to.  They all knew that Azulon had been a cruel man, and that Ozai had been crueler still. The wonder was that so many of them were still alive, and she remembered, as if from a great distance, her hysterical challenge to Zuko from the warship that she would be an only child.  

Father had been so upset with her in those days. She was stupid for even thinking he would have let her join him as he decimated the Earth Kingdom. She had let Zuko escape in his ship. She had let Zuko escape from the prisons. Then she had lost Mai and Ty Lee—not that he would have cared about them except as more proof that his daughter was not good enough. 

Failure had haunted her steps, and her cheeks flushed at their memory.  

What was wrong with her, that she had failed so much, when she was so good at everything? It was Zuko’s fault. She had brought him home in victory, and then he had left again of his own free will. He had left everything behind, as if everything was worthless. Everything had changed after that, everything had gone wrong. But why? Zuko—Zuko was nobody. Nobody needed Zuko. And yet his absence was a scar, a wound that never completely healed because of the embarrassment he had caused, because of the way their father had raged at Zuko's failures. In a way, Zuko had been present even in his absence. And when he had returned, there had been peace, they had sat beside their father as they plotted the destruction of the Earth Kingdom together. Then it was all destroyed when Zuko had left, again, but never really leaving as their father made his plans around his absence. It wasn't as if Azula would have been left behind if Zuko had stayed. They would have both been on the airship, beside their father, empowered by the comet, burning the Earth Kingdom to the ground.

She raised her eyes to meet Zuko's, pushing aside the thoughts that circled in her head. She didn’t care about them. They didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was getting out of this room without being hounded by her brother and the Avatar. 

“You could send me to look for her,” Azula said. “She might be dead, but people don’t just disappear. Father sent you on a quest in exile to discover the Avatar, so send me after our mother, and have all your questions answered upon my return.” 

Iroh pulled Zuko aside. “She is too dangerous to wander the kingdoms alone. She may not have her bending, but she has always been deadly and cunning. She is attempting to manipulate you, by attempting to speak a language you understand. Lord Zuko, when has Azula ever cared for honor? How could she want to restore something which she feels she has not lost?" He gripped Zuko's arm. "She is lying to you. Do not listen to her!” 

“Everybody deserves second chances, Uncle.” Zuko looked back at her. “And I have had many second chances.”  

Azula sighed. “Well, don’t think you have to make a decision right away on my account. After all, it’s not as if I have anywhere to go.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “But you can’t just keep me here forever, Zuko. Either put me in prison with my father, or set me free. Don’t keep me grounded like a child.” 

Iroh shook his head. “If you ever were a child.” 

Azula smiled at him. “No. I suppose I wasn’t.” 

“Let’s go, Zuko,” Iroh said, tugging at his arm.  

Iroh disappeared but Zuko lingered. “Do you really mean it? About Mom--that you would look for answers?” 

“Of course I mean it, or I wouldn’t have offered,” Azula said. “But I really don’t think talking to me is going to help you make up your mind.” She pitched her voice higher. “Azula always lies, Azula is crazy and needs to go down." She paused, and her voice returned to normal pitch as she continued. "Well, I am down, right where you want me. Now, what are you going to do about it?” 

"I don't know," Zuko said. He stayed for a moment longer, and then left her chambers. He was probably hurrying after his uncle, as if that would help him make up his mind.

Azula paced the floor in circles after he had gone, her fingers interlocking around each other as she tried to figure out what she should do. But she could hardly think. Everything was tangled up and confused. She needed a royal hair-combing. She needed to go out and do something, but she couldn't. She was trapped here, in this room, without servants and without a way to get her bending back so that she could release her father from the cell they held him in.  

She was hungry, she was tired, she was thirsty from her pacing, from her fevered thoughts as she kept thinking about their meeting, about their questions regarding what she remembered from that night. She decided that she needed a bath, and then she realized that Li and Lo had not come to attend to her once that day, even though such an absence would have been unthinkable when she had been more than just her brother's prisoner. But that was alright. She didn't need them, she thought, as she drew her own bath. 

Water flowed warm and hot, but it cooled too quickly. She held her empty palms, dripping with water, and hated them with a dull resentment that ate through her cold and empty belly. She had nothing to hit, nothing to burn. Pain resided low in the pit of her stomach as she let herself slide beneath the surface of the water until it covered her completely. She watched the bubbles rise from her escaping breath, and then she was trapped in the ice that Katara had bended around her, and she scrambled to her feet so quickly and clumsily that water slopped over the fine edges of the tub. She stood, gasping for breath, as tepid water lapped at her ankles, as water streamed through her hair and down her back. Goosebumps formed on her skin as she shivered in the cold.


	6. Interlude: What Azula Saw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Domestic Abuse

This was how it had always been when Azula was four and Zuko was six. 

Azula was small, limber, and lithe. She slipped into the unseen places, lurking in the shadows, watching the people around her. She heard what they said, saw what they did, and did not speak of them, unless the time was right.

Zuko was not like his sister. He preferred the company of his mother to hiding behind the curtains. He liked to smile and he liked to laugh and people could hear him a mile away. He liked to be loved. 

They complemented each other, Azula thought, as she watched Zuko feed the turtle-ducks with his mother. The fire lilies were blooming, and Zuko had given her a blossom, and she wore it in her hair. 

There were times where Azula didn't understand everything she had heard, but she liked knowing that Li and Lo napped beneath the mimosa trees, that the head of the guard was attempting to get new boots for his soldiers because they complained of an ill fit, that Lu Ten protested the fire-locks on the sages' most sacred libraries because everyone should be able to read them, that Mom and Dad no longer drank their jasmine tea together, and that there was a soldier’s wife constantly begging to see Fire Lord Azulon to demand why her husband was so long away at war—but no one ever let her pass the threshold because she was too poor to ask an audience from someone so far her better, and who was she to question the Fire Lord anyway? They laughed at her, oh how they laughed at her, and in time, Azula laughed in her hands when she saw her approach, with her bare rags and her thin face and her watery eyes.  

She did not tell Zuko all these things, of course, but she told him about the woman, and he asked her why she laughed, and she said it was funny and he'd understand if he'd watch with her, that he would laugh too. He shook his head. He told her she was probably sad and that maybe one day she would stop coming because he was finally dead.

"Or because we'll win," Azula said. 

Zuko normally agreed, and even though he said he agreed with her, he was holding something back. It was as if he thought she was wrong, and that he wouldn't laugh like she and the guards did. But he was wrong, he would, and he didn't come with her because he didn't want to know the truth. 

Azula was fine with that. Zuko could do what he wanted, and she was glad that he would listen to her. 

He would listen to her when she had difficulties sleeping at night. She slipped from her bed, sometimes sneaking into Zuko's room, shaking his shoulders until he woke up, telling him about the different things she had seen that day, the small things, the ones that were of no consequence, like how Dad would keep the curtains at the window of his study drawn. The study faced the knoll where she practiced her firebending, every day, which meant that he no longer watched her.

"He hasn't been coming to practice for a while now," Zuko said.

It was true. There was a time where he would leave the palace, and join them in the gardens. He would watch them, and sometimes he would clap his hands, and sometimes he would even smile.

But he had stopped doing that some time ago. Still, when Azula rested from a set, she would see the window of his study, the curtains parted, fluttering in the breeze if there was one. And she would see him glancing from his work, watching her firebend through the window, and it wasn't as good as before, but it was something.

Zuko hadn't noticed.

"It's because I'm not a good firebender," she said, even though it wasn't true. She was a prodigy, everybody said so. Something else was stopping him, and one day, she'd find out what.

But Zuko replied, as he always did, "You're the best firebender I've ever seen, and one day you're going to be so great, and Father's going to be so proud of you."

Then she'd say, “Don’t regret saying that when I’m better than you!” 

And he’d say back, “I can think of no one better to beat me.” 

“We’re on the same side,” Azula said, “so we win together. ” 

They’d wrestle until one of them overpowered the other, until they collapsed for breath, laughing until they were tired and they fell asleep sprawled on the floor. 

But one such night, after they had exhausted themselves, Azula told Zuko something she had promised she would not tell him, because if she didn't understand, then Zuko wouldn't understand either. But it bothered her, and so she said, "Haven't you noticed how Mom and Dad don't drink tea together anymore?"

“He’s probably just busy,” Zuko said. “With Uncle Iroh gone on another campaign—someone has to take over his responsibilities.” 

“Uncle Iroh is always gone," Azula said.  

Zuko squeezed her hand. “He'll be back soon, and then things will go back to normal." 

Until Uncle Iroh left again. She had heard rumors that Uncle Iroh had had a vision about conquering the walls of Ba Sing Se. That it would be his destiny. He would always be leaving one last time until the walls fell. But she didn't tell Zuko that.

Instead, they fell asleep, and Azula woke before Zuko did. She slipped from his room and wandered the halls until she found Mom, feeding the turtle-ducks in the early morning light. She kicked at clumps of dirt until she was noticed. “Good morning, Azula.” 

“Will Dad watch us practice today?” 

Mom kept scattering bits of bread to the turtle-ducks. “I don’t know.” She turned and smiled at Azula. "I'll watch you." 

Azula kicked even more viciously at a clump of grass, disturbing a bright green lizard that scurried from her shoe. She leaped after it, attempting to stamp on it, to catch it as it flitted so bright through the leaves—but Mom’s hand jerked her shoulder. “What are you doing, Azula? The lizard has done nothing to you.” 

“It’s not like it’s a person." Azula struggled against her mother, which only caused her to squeeze harder. “Let me go!” she squealed as she swung wildly with her fists and kicked out with her feet. 

“Azula—Azula listen to me,” Mom said. “The lizard is not your father.” 

“I’m not stupid!” Azula sagged in her mother’s arms, already spent. She hated that. 

She should be strong, strong like her mother was. 

“You’re angry at him,” she said, still holding Azula tightly. “But that doesn’t mean you take it out on someone else. It’s just a lizard yes—but it’s a living being deserving of our respect. It is not a target for your anger.” 

Azula bit her lip, heart pounding against her ribcage. Her fingers twitched, but her mother had locked her wrists. She couldn’t firebend even if she wanted to. How could she even think of that? The first thing all the young children learned was not to use firebending against each other until they had been properly coached, until they were much, much older and experienced. 

“I’m going to let you go,” Ursa whispered. She loosened her grip, and knelt on the wet grass so that she was eye level with Azula. She smoothed the hair framing Azula’s face, and smiled a little. “Your hair is always so beautiful.” 

“I just want him to be proud of me,” Azula said, as she dragged her thumb and forefinger down the long gilded edge of her mother’s sleeves. “How can he be proud of me if he doesn’t know what I can do?” 

Mom pressed a kiss to Azula’s temple before she stood. “He’s proud of you no matter what. But I will talk to him, alright?” 

“Do you promise?” 

“I do.” 

But Mom had promised that she would speak to Father before, and Azula still had not seen his face at practice. So she waited for her mother to disappear before flitting after her.  

She followed close until Mom slipped through the curtains into the room Dad favored for his work. 

Azula held her breath as she crept towards the curtain and peered through the thin gap between the cloth. Father was there, sitting at the table, bent over scrolls covered in writing that Azula wasn’t able to read. 

She heard her mother say her father’s name. 

“Ursa.” 

A rustle of cloth, and Azula saw that she had seated herself across from Ozai. “Azula has been asking about you. She misses you. She wants you to watch her at practice today.” 

“I told you I don’t have time for such trivialities,” Ozai said, and Azula’s mouth parted, and something tightened somewhere in her chest— 

Ursa sighed, her face downcast, not looking Ozai in the eye. “She is your daughter. Not some triviality. And so is your son. I know he misses you.” 

Ozai said nothing, simply reached for another scroll. Ursa stopped him from opening it though with a hand on his wrist. “We need to talk about this.” 

“There’s nothing to talk about, Ursa. Iroh is currently on another campaign in the Earth Kingdom. And what shall I do? Watch children play as my brother earns every honor for himself? As I allow him to overshadow me? One day, he'll be sent to Ba Sing Se, and I will be left behind with nothing.“ 

“Ozai,” Ursa said, “you have your family. Do not lose them in the chase for something better.” 

Ozai’s other hand tightened over Ursa's, and her mouth tightened, like Zuko’s tightened when Azula managed to knee him hard in the stomach and he didn’t want to let her know it hurt by crying out. She frowned.  

“Will Azula or Zuko be able to ensure our continued place in the Fire Nation? Will Azula or Zuko grant me more audiences with Fire Lord Azulon?” 

Ursa's head bowed low. “Why do you call him that? He is your father.” 

The pain must have been too much as Ursa released Ozai so that he could open the scroll if he wanted to. But he dropped it, letting it roll aside as his hand snaked under her sleeve, pulling her towards him so that she was bent over the table, the hard edge of it pressed against her soft stomach. 

Azula put her hand over her mouth. 

“He is the Fire Lord, and I must be a son worthy of him. I must try harder to prove myself, since Iroh is given command in the Earth Kingdom." 

Mom squirmed against the table, but Father did not release his grip on her. 

“While Iroh is handed everything by virtue of being the first born, I struggle to simply even catch the offhand favor of Fire Lord Azulon.“ 

“—you have family here—“ Mother’s voice shook, like Azula’s sometimes shook, like it had almost shook earlier this morning. 

“And Iroh will gain the throne when he has not wanted it for as long as I have, when he doesn’t need it like I need it, when I deserve it more than he deserves it—that throne should be mine!” 

Smoke seeped through the cloth of her mother’s sleeve, and Azula could not stop watching its winding path as it twisted up between the two of them, her prone mother and Father leaning over her, one hand pinning her by the wrist, the other hidden by her sleeve. 

Ursa's other hand slapped uselessly at him. 

“Ozai,” she said, her voice finally breaking into a wounded whimper. Little shudders shivered in her shoulders. Her hair stuck to the hot sweat shining high on her cheeks. She pawed the table with her free hand, a wet feeble struggle that her father completely ignored. 

“I will have the throne. It will be mine. And I cannot do that if you or Azula or Zuko continue to demand and waste my time.” 

He finally let her go, his hand slipping from under her sleeve, flexing as if he had a cramp. 

It took longer for Ursa to sit up straight again. When she fixed her hair with her trembling and shaking hands, her sleeve fell to her elbow revealing a series of burns—some nearly healed, some pink, and one a bright red—patterning her skin. Her breath came in shaky gasps. “Then I will tell Azula that you are busy, but that you look forward to the time when your responsibilities will ease and you are allowed to watch her again.” 

He did not answer or look at her as she stood slowly to her feet, her hand leaning on the wall for support as she made her way to the door, her other hand rubbing small circles along her ribcage where it had been pulled against the table. 

“Ursa, wait,” Father said, dropping his scroll and going after her. He touched her elbow even though she flinched away. But he took the hand that she held close to her stomach, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. He guided her so that he put her palm on his own shoulder while he drew her in closer by sliding his other hand up her neck, coaxing her to tip up her head so that he could kiss her cheek, her mouth, whispering small apologies with each caress.  

Mother didn’t move under his administrations, and again he was the one who had to guide her so that she hugged him loosely as he embraced her, with his head cradled on her shoulder, eventually guiding her so that she was out of sight of Azula, who still peeked through curtain. 

“Ozai—I can’t,” Mother said. “I need to—“ 

Azula flitted away, not wanting to see anymore. She dove around the corner as she waited for her mother to come out.  

It didn’t take long, but when her mother appeared again, she was straightening her clothes and her hair. Her face seemed tight, and lined with worry, and maybe something else. 

Azula pretended to be wandering from around the corner, and feigned surprise when she bumped into the legs of her mother. “Did you talk to him?” 

“Azula.” Mom’s voice was fragile, tired. 

It grated against Azula. She never wanted to hear Mom sound like that again. Maybe she should have waited—but something drove her, something pricked her, and she wondered if her mother would trust her with what she had seen enough to explain it to her. She reached for her hand. “What happened?” 

Mom’s face shifted, already settling into the script she had memorized. Azula watched her lips move and sound came from them, the same words she had already heard. She held her mother’s hand, the one that Ozai had held. Her fingers curled over the dark shadows already forming from his grip, and her hand crept under Mom’s sleeve until— 

“Azula, stop!” She didn’t slap Azula’s hand away—just flapped it away, but not before Azula heard the bitten-back pain in her voice—and she had caused that one. Her skin burned. 

“What do you say when you hurt someone?” Her mother's voice was hard, and Azula stood mesmerized.  

“I didn’t mean it. It was an accident.” 

“You still say you’re sorry." 

“Oh.” Azula ground her toe into the stone, and tried to understand what had happened between her parents and what had happened afterward. Everything was supposed to be okay. They had kissed, they had made up, but she still sounded like everything was wrong. “Sorry.” 

“Go and play, Azula.” 

So Azula did. She ran through the stone halls, feet skidding as she rounded the corners, not even bothering to slow down, her body accommodating by rolling through the hairpin curves, until she found herself panting and tired and exhausted by the turtle-duck pond.  

She splashed into their depths, the ducks squawking with some alarm, and dunked her hot face into the cool water. Once she had wiped the water from her eyes, she saw that there was still a hunk of bread from earlier—something that her mother had left behind. 

She flopped, wet and sopping, against the grass, but the words her father had said, the way her mother sounded, cycled through her blood, pounding through her stomach and her heart and her head, until she had to get up again, pacing in tightening circles as she remembered and remembered and remembered. 

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Dad was so unhappy, that he wanted Grandfather to see him like she wanted him to see her—but he was working so hard to try to please his father, to impress him— 

But if he had the throne—then he’d be happy, and he wouldn’t do what he did, and Azula would never have to see her be that weak again, that helpless—and they would all be happy, and they would drink their tea together, like before. 

But how could she even begin to help when her father kept himself locked up, trying to find the answer? She kicked savagely at clumps of grass, but no living things hopped from under her prowling feet. 

The clucking of the turtle-ducks tugged her attention. They were so small, just chicks, and they clucked plaintively, as if they wanted something, as if they needed something. “Shut up!” she shouted, throwing the hunk of bread at the nearest one, watching as it knocked the chick under the water. But he broke the surface again, shaking his head, wings and feathers all ruffled—and the entire flock scurried from her sight as she raised her hand, even though her fingers were empty. 

She flexed her fist, her breath coming in heady gasps as she crouched low to watch them cluster towards the far end of the pond, as far away as they could get away from her. 

She caught a glimpse of herself in the water—her cheeks were flushed, skin wet, hair undone and plastered against her forehead. She looked like her mother as she waited for father to let her go. So she fixed her hair, wrapping her ribbon nice and tight. She straightened her clothes, checking her reflection to make sure she looked perfect.  

He wanted the throne—well Azula would do what she could to make sure he had it, even if she was only a child. 


	7. Mai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The knife that Azula holds when she tells Sokka to "come and get it" looks very similar to the ones that Mai uses. I headcanon that she stole it from Mai.

Mai honed her collection of knives every night before bed. It passed the long hours with repetition and focus. It was boring, but it was hers. Few people saw the value of her habit. When she had been little, her parents had frowned at her, but since Princess Azula had encouraged Mai, they had done nothing about it. But she knew what they thought: 

Sullen Mai with her silly knives. 

But even though it was because of Azula that her parents had let her have this one thing without too much of a fuss, it would also be Azula who would just take one of her knives without asking, as if they belonged to her instead of Mai. She glared at the empty space where her set should have been complete. 

She wondered when Azula had taken her knife. She wondered if she still had it. If she had ever used it. If the prodigy had thrown it as straight as Mai could have. If she had had a chance to use it at all.

She wondered why Azula just hadn’t asked for Mai’s expertise instead of just taking it as her own. If she had just asked, Mai probably would have agreed to whatever scheme Azula had cooked up. Mai didn't like sitting around doing nothing. She most definitely probably would have said yes if Azula had simply asked her to come. 

Not for the first time, Mai wondered if she should tell Zuko about the missing knife. He had told her how he had found Azula hurting herself, and how they had to remove most of the sharp objects from her room. 

Maybe it would be better if Azula did as she willed with the missing knife—if only she made sure to leave it where Mai could easily find it again and thus keep her collection complete. 

Her frown deepened into that expression her mother would have told her to smile away, and she clenched her fist around the knife she held, the one she was supposed to have been cleaning and sharpening. 

Just because Mai honed herself into the very best a fire princess could ask for didn’t mean that Azula could just brush her aside. It didn’t mean she could take the very thing that had always been Mai’s, that she needed Mai for, and use it herself. 

She shook her head. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been expecting it. She had known that Azula would betray her (and Ty Lee) sooner or later. She had just been hoping it would be later.

A knock offered a small distraction, and she said, “Come in.” Zuko entered, and she smiled. “Hello, Fire Lord.” She reached for him. 

“Mai.” 

He kissed her forehead, and she allowed him to cradle her head against his chest, his chin resting against her dark hair. She closed her eyes, and held him. 

There was a time when she had thought she would never see him again. There was a time where she had wondered why he had not come for her. But she tried not to think about those times anymore.

“Do you want to sit on the couch? It’s more comfortable,” Mai said. Cuddling with Zuko was nice. 

“Is it okay if we talk about Azula?” Zuko whispered as they curled in close to each other. His breath tickled the shell of her ear.  

“I don’t care.” Mai rolled a little away from him, muscles tensing. She remembered the empty space, the missing knife. 

Zuko let her distance herself, not catching her or pulling her back. He always listened to the way she held her body, seeing the way she moved though everybody else saw a bored teenager with a bad attitude. She liked that about him.

“She wants to restore her honor,” Zuko said. 

Mai rolled her eyes. “Azula? Honor? Stop, you’ll make me laugh. You know how much I hate that.” 

“That’s what Uncle said.” He nuzzled her neck, and she could feel his smile against her skin. “I like it when you laugh,” he added softly. 

“Laughing makes me nauseous,” Mai said, but she turned back towards Zuko and let him hold her. “So what are you going to do?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t want to be responsible for anything horrible Azula does if she's gone. But I don’t want her to be on her own because I learned that’s not always the best path. But I can’t accompany her because I can’t abandon the Fire Nation—not now that I’m Fire Lord.” He sighed. 

Mai touched his cheek as she sighed with him, almost not quite believing she was about to indulge whatever scheme Azula was planning. “How does she intend to restore her honor?” 

Zuko paused for a moment. He looked away from her as he said, “She said that she’d try to find out what happened to our mom.” 

Mai was silent, frowning only a little bit. She had not expected him to say something like that, but of course Azula would make a promise like that to Zuko. She had chosen her approach wisely, zeroing in on what would always be Zuko's weakness judging from what had been said on the beach, all those months ago. “Oh.” 

“I know,” Zuko said, voice rising. “She doesn’t care about Mom—not like I do. She knew it would be the one thing I couldn't refuse. The one thing I wouldn't want to refuse, especially since my father won't tell me anything.” 

Was there a weakness Azula didn’t know about? Probably not—it was people’s strengths she tended to underestimate. Mai made what she hoped sounded like a sympathetic noise.  

“Even powerless—“ Zuko didn’t finish his sentence, just pressed his head against the pillows and squeezed his eyes shut. 

“Don’t let her get to you,” Mai said. “Don't let her win.” 

“I feel like she’s been under my skin since birth, like a shadow I’ll never be rid of.” 

Mai worked herself free from Zuko’s arm, stretched, and paced around the couch, worrying her lip with her teeth. He looked up at her, but didn’t follow. She wished they had some tea. All this talking was making her thirsty.

Zuko lifted himself on his elbow. “What? I can tell you have something in mind.” 

Mai kept walking in circles around the couch. She picked up the knife she had been tending to when Zuko came in. It's familiar weight was a comfort in her hand, and she twirled it through her fingers before she finally spoke. “I’ll go with Azula. I’m an okay baby-sitter. If you ask anybody but my parents.” 

Zuko got up, trailed after Mai as she still paced her slow circle. “I can’t ask you to do that.” 

“You didn't ask me. I volunteered. Besides, there’s nothing to do here.” Mai stopped, and turned towards Zuko. She had seen him less since he had become Fire Lord. Not that she blamed him for that. “I’m bored.” 

Zuko put his hands on her shoulders. “She would have burned you if Ty Lee hadn’t stopped her. So instead she sent you away in the biggest, most secure prison in the Fire Nation. The place where prisoners are sent to be forgotten.” 

“You didn’t forget about me,” Mai said. 

“That’s not the point.” 

Mai rolled her eyes and shook him from her. “You’re missing the point. You don’t know what to do about Azula. Azula provided a solution but you can’t trust her. You feel guilty about letting her languish when you could have been her if people hadn’t helped you. So now you want to help her back, but you can’t because you’re the Fire Lord. You want your mom back, but you can’t justify the decision to leave. And now you’re telling me that I can’t help you?” She folded her arms and glared at him. “That’s not fair, Zuko. I can make my own decisions.” 

“I know—but it’s just that--Azula is not a good friend.” 

Mai walked away from him, and looked out the window. Evening had already fallen and there wasn't much of a view. She liked it that way. “Azula wasn’t always a bad friend.” She looked down at the knife in her hand. Azula had encouraged her to learn this skill, and now it glinted from the candlelight in the room. “Maybe I wasn’t a good friend either. I'm not an easy person to be around.” 

“That sounds like something Azula would say.” Zuko looked up at her from under the fringe of his hair. “Which means it’s not true.” 

Mai frowned. “It’s not like she forced me to be her friend. It wasn't anything dramatic like that.” 

“Yeah?” He said it softly, tentatively, like if he spoke any louder he’d scare her off, and she wished he wouldn’t do that, wished he wasn’t so tender—but it was nice that he was. That he cared how she felt about something. 

It reminded her of Azula, and she put her blade back down on the table. “It’s a boring story. I was bored at school—and then there was Azula.” 

“Who wasn’t boring,” Zuko said after she didn’t continue, his voice shifting upwards, like he asked a questioned he wanted her to answer, like he was prompting her to go on. 

“I’m not going to tell you my whole life story,” Mai said. “It doesn’t matter.” 

He went to her, cupped her face in his hands as he pressed another kiss to her forehead, then to her lips. “If you really want to do this, I won’t stop you. But be careful. She’s still dangerous.” 

Mai graced Zuko with a small smile. “So am I.” 

“I know.” He grinned back at her—the one Mai had recognized as the one he reserved for her and her alone. It made her feel special.  

After Zuko left to attend the unending affairs of state which bored her so much—so much sitting, so much keeping of one’s tongue—Mai also departed from her family’s home to the royal palace. Everything was so quiet this time of night—the kind of quiet that would make Azula restless. The kind of quiet that would have spurred her to do something.  

She got bored as quickly as Mai did. 

Mai shook herself, and found her way towards Azula’s chambers, knocking while she waited restlessly for Azula to invite her in, which she did with only the slightest of hesitations. She found Azula sitting on the bed in a thin robe, her face twisting when she saw Mai. 

“You,” Azula said. There was a flash of something like anger before it disappeared, and Azula relaxed, like she was going to pretend she wasn't going to care about anything. “Didn't I say something about never wanting to see your face again? Not that it matters now, I suppose, since everything is different. Perhaps now you can be happy, Mai, with all the changes in your life.” 

Mai shrugged. “I suppose you could say that.” 

Azula already climbed out of her bed, her body already adopting an offensive stance. Mai settled into another one to mirror hers. 

“You think you could take me in a fair fight?” Azula snarled. "Ty Lee isn't here to protect you."

“How do you expect to fight without your bending?” Mai said. Not that it would unsettle Azula overly much—Mai had seen her fight without her bending before, and not even Aang and his friends had managed to pin her down and defeat her on the Day of Black Sun—but there was nothing Azula prized more than her blue fire and now it was gone and Mai had never felt so pleased about anything before. 

“Come to gloat, Mai? How pathetically predictable of you.” 

“Hardly. Zuko told me about what you requested.” 

It was only then Azula allowed her offensive stance to relax. Mai did likewise. If people didn’t look too closely, they might mistake their conversation as almost civil.  

“Of course he did. Zuzu can’t make a single decision without first consulting someone for all his talk about being the man he wants to be.” Azula pretended to examine her fingernails, as if she didn't care about the topic of conversation.

“You don’t know anything about Zuko,” Mai said. “You never have. But this isn’t about him—it’s about you, and your scheme for escaping here. I’m surprised, actually.” 

Azula scoffed. “Mai is surprised. How remarkable.” 

“Surprised that you’re still here. You should have escaped days ago.” Mai took a step towards her, but Azula stood her ground. “The old Azula would have.” 

Azula smiled. “I know when I’m beaten.” 

“You’re waiting,” Mai said, "for Zuko to let you go so that you don’t have to worry about an entire army searching for you.” 

Azula kept smiling. It didn’t look good on her. “You never should have turned on me, Mai. We worked so well together because we were such good friends, and you threw it all away.” Her eyes flashed with familiar anger.

Mai sighed, her glance sliding away from Azula as she took in the nearly empty room. She imagined herself in a room like this, and her flesh crawled in that way where she wanted to peel it from her bones. If Azula wasn’t crazy before—well being stuck here would definitely finish the job. No wonder she was desperate to get away. Mai hated that she understood how she felt. “Then you’ll be thrilled to know that I advised Zuko to accept your offer.” 

Azula’s smile slipped for the first time—and she schooled her face so that it did not betray anything of her thoughts to Mai. “Of course you did, Mai. Ever since our little incident at the Boiling Rock, you probably want me as far away from you as possible, since we're not friends anymore.” 

Mai forced herself to meet Azula’s face, to keep contact with her eyes. "I told him to accept as long as I accompanied you on this mission to supposedly restore you honor.” 

“So you’re to be my babysitter.” Azula’s voice soured and she paced away from Mai in the familiar corkscrew spirals. “I see.” 

Mai glanced around the room, hopefully not obviously enough for Azula to pick up on it. She didn’t see her missing knife, but knowing Azula, it was probably hidden in her sleeves somewhere. 

Typical. 

“You’re just loving this aren’t you?” Azula said, sitting down on the bed, smoothing her hair with her hands. “Seeing me like this. Humiliated.” 

“No.” Mai opened the door to leave. “I don’t feel anything, as you’ve constantly reminded me.” 

“You just feel for Zuko then." Azula pursed her lips, and pitched her voice lower and rougher so that it sounded something like Mai’s. “I love Zuko more than I fear you.” In her usual tone, she added, “So I guess you do feel something.”

Mai went to leave, not even pausing as she let the door close behind her. “You've got me all figured out. Congratulations.”

If Azula had more to say, she did not linger to hear it. She went to the gardens, where she and Azula and Ty Lee had played when they were little. It was quiet here, and she stood at the pond, looking at her reflection in the water. The wind rippled the water, distorting her image. 

Being with Azula again had been unpleasant, but she could probably bear it for Zuko's sake. She knew she would regret volunteering for the mission sooner or later--probably sooner--but she was alright with that.

She had done many things she knew she would regret, and things had turned out alright in the end.

This would too, no matter what happened to Azula. 


	8. Interlude: Schoolyard Politics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that I have been putting the flashbacks on Thursday, with the story on Friday, but I will be at my brother's wedding this upcoming week so there will be no "present" story on Friday as I will be out of state. Sorry!

The school administration was trying to get Mai to play outside with the other children.

“The only reason I’m here is because my parents want me to be here,” Mai said to the adult who was the most persistent and had not given up. “Not because I want to have fun.” 

It was true. This school was a pit stop for her father’s political career—and she went where her parents told her to go because life was easier when they were happy.  

She probably wouldn’t even be here in a year. 

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have friends.” 

Mai yawned. “I don’t want friends.” 

“Fine. Suit yourself.” And then they, too, left Mai leaning against a wall, with her arms folded and black ribbons in her shiny, black hair. 

Other students showed off their firebending skills. They thought it made them powerful, better than her. Their mini political play bored her.  

One of the older students swaggered up to her, face flushed from the heat and from the fire and probably from embarrassment at their generic existence. Mai frowned, her lips pulled down low and unhappy. If she did what her parents asked of her in their numerous letters, she would mingle with this student. She would ask how she was. She would learn her name. She would learn who her parents were, and how much power they had. She would make nice and be friends, so that her parents could become friends with her parents, and then those friendships would help them make even more powerful friendships until they found themselves the governor of their very own Earth Kingdom colony one day. 

Wow. So exciting. 

This girl would probably take her shopping or ask what her favorite color was or something stupid like that. 

This girl made her nauseous. The girl’s smile made her nauseous. The mere idea of having to socialize with her made her nauseous. 

The girl was sickness embodied.  

Mai hated her immediately, so when the girl said hello, Mai ignored her until she went away—though she did shoot a very dirty look over her shoulder as she did. 

No doubt she would badmouth Mai to her numerous friends. 

Mai didn't care about that, though.

However, when Mai saw Azula, the girl from earlier, enter the square with Ty Lee beside her, still dressed in circus pink, Mai found herself interested, and she took a few steps in their direction. Ty Lee’s garb would do for now—it was still hot and it was summer—but when the cooler weather set in, she’d need something more. She wondered if Azula would take care of that too, the same way she seemed to take care of everything that tried to get in her way. 

She always got her way, in the end. 

Mai respected that.

Azula could move the wills of everyone, even those who passed her off as some brat-faced kid (royalty or no) because parents sent their kids to learn—not to reign court. But here, Azula may as well have been the Firelord, and she wasn’t even in the line for succession. She’d never be Firelord—not unless there were some unfortunate deaths in the family. 

Mai couldn’t stop looking at her, and her feet wouldn’t stop taking a meandering path towards her. 

Ty Lee’s long braid was looped over her shoulder—but no one even dared tug it. Nobody made a snide comment about her poor apparel. 

No one spoke to them unless they desired it. And if a girl did brush up to them, all sweetness and flattering lips to please spare a moment of their time, they ignored her if they desired, and no one told them to play nice. 

The letters from home burned hot reminders into her skin. Her parents would be thrilled if they knew that Azula was here. They would ask Mai to be one of those simpering girls. They would tell Mai to be whoever she needed to be in order to befriend Azula. A connection to the royal family—well, it wasn’t to be imagined, not even they had dared to dream that high. 

If only Azula were somehow less—more like a sputtering candle flame struggling at the last moment in its pool of wick and wax, then Mai could turn her back and not look behind her, and wonder what if they could be friends, really friends. 

Why couldn’t this girl have been someone else, anybody else? Someone her parents would have scorned with a curl of their lips, someone whom they would tell Mai was not worth her time?

But a girl like that wouldn’t be able to do what Azula could. People parted like water before he. They held their breath around her. 

Someone pushed into Mai from behind, a heavy weight against her thin shoulder blades, and she stumbled to her knees, scraping them against the harsh stone. 

“Watch it if you can’t handle the heat,” the girl who bumped her said, fire playing from her fists. 

Mai would like to see her talk so big without her bending. “Is that the best you could come up with?” She climbed to her feet, brushing the dust from her dark clothes. She folded her arms, stared down her long nose that had been the targets of taunts and jokes by her peers.  

The girl looked around, her face wide, splitting with a too-tight smile that wanted so hard to be a snarl—or a scowl. She’d probably been reprimanded before about causing trouble, which was good for Mai, who never, ever caused trouble. “Says the person who can’t even bend. What do you think you’re doing here, getting in the way?” 

Mai shrugged, about to go, when she brushed into Azula, whom she had not seen coming their way. Ty Lee rested her elbow on Azula's shoulder, leaning against her casually as if she were a wall instead of a person. Azula's hip pushed against Ty Lee's--only a knife would have been able to slice them apart, so thickly were they entwined together. Azula played with Ty Lee's long braid as if she were bored. Still, they both had smiles laid on slick and pretty, like they weren't real. 

Mai worked her jaw, trying to decide if she wanted to apologize for slighting someone of the royal family or if she wanted to just ignore them.  

“I don’t think you fire’s hot enough to burn flesh,” Azula said. “What do you think, Ty Lee? Do you think she has what it takes?” Fire blossomed from her own hand, the one that was closest to Ty Lee, who did not even shrink away, as if she had nothing to fear. 

“You think I’m scared of you,” the girl said, she stood taller, fire still jetting from her fists. “You think because you’re the daughter of a prince I should care about you or what you think? You're nobody special--the only reason you're here is because of who your father's father is. You don't know what it means to work for anything. You're just lucky.” 

Azula slipped free of Ty Lee’s arm and circled the girl while Ty Lee flitted lightly around in the opposite direction, long braid swinging, fingers already curving inwards, knuckles ready to jab sharp and true. Mai sensed the gap the two girls made in their vulture-circle, and easily fell in step with them. 

“You’re right of course,” Azula said. “I did come here because I am the daughter of a prince. Do you think it’s easy to keep a throne? Do you think it takes a soft hand?” Her eyes widened as she closed in on the girl. “Would you like to find out just how hard I've worked to be good at what I do?” Here she paused directly in front of the girl, Ty Lee on her left, Mai on her right. 

The girl hesitated for a moment. “You think she’s a friend,” she said, gazing at Ty Lee. “She’s not. She’ll never really be friends with you. People like her—they don’t know how to be friends. She’ll use you. She’ll throw you away and move on when she’s done with you.” 

“Are you saying you want to be our friend too?” Ty Lee smiled at her. 

“No, that’s not what she’s saying,” Azula said. “Though you’re right about one thing. She’s so envious that she was passed over by me when I chose my friends.” She stepped closer to the girl. “Isn’t that right?” 

Mai had to hand it to the girl for not falling back, for standing up as tall as she could and looking down on Azula because Azula was short and small and could make you feel as useless and insignificant as a broken pair of chopsticks. “That’s not what I said.” 

“But that’s what you meant.” Then Azula laughed, swinging away from the girl without so much as looking back. “Come along, girls.” 

A look of shock, and maybe hunger flickered over the girl’s face as she started after Azula, while Mai looked hard at her shoes. Royalty always did this—they humiliated people, they put them in their place, and then they offered them a kindness to make them forget, to make them hungrier. Mai should not be surprised. She should not be hurt. What did she care for Azula, when everything that had been said was probably true. And yet— 

Azula’s cut the air with shrill sharpness. “Not you, Eun-jae. I thought it would be obvious I wasn't talking to you. Come along, gloomy girl, I don't like to ask twice." 

Mai’s head jerked up, interest pricking her skin. Azula strode back through the crowd that had gathered, Ty Lee still at her side. Eun-jae blushed, stamped her feet, and scorched the earth with her humiliation.   

Mai didn’t let her hesitation take her again, but followed swiftly after the two girls—Azula all in military red, Ty Lee in pink, and she herself in grey.


	9. The Difference Between Us

After leaving Azula, Mai went to Ty Lee's chambers to tell her what she had decided. Ty Lee was still dressed in her Kyoshi outfit, and she stood by the window drinking licorice tea. The people were still celebrating Zuko's coronation, and there was the pink and green spray of fireworks flashing momentarily across her cheeks.

"Mai!" Ty Lee said, setting down her tea and running towards her, throwing her arms around her. 

Mai waited patiently for Ty Lee to finish. 

"What are you doing here? Why aren't you with Zuko?"

Mai folded her arms. "Have you heard about Azula's latest scheme?"

"Is she scheming?" Ty Lee said. "When I went to visit her she seemed very--" she paused as she raised her fluttering eyes towards the ceiling--"lost. Desperate, I suppose would be a good word, but also depressed or maybe even angry. But honestly, when is Azula not angry about something? But I hadn't realized she was planning anything." She straightened and looked at Mai, smiling expectantly. "What's going on?"

Mai sighed. Of course Ty Lee had gone to visit Azula when she should be leaving her alone. She wished she could say that she didn't understand what Ty Lee saw in Azula, but she did understand. In fact, she understood too well. Sometimes, she even missed the Azula she thought she had known when she had been just a child, when Azula had pretended to be kind. "She told Zuko that she wanted to restore her honor."

Ty Lee didn't wait for Mai to finish before bursting out with laughter. "But Azula doesn't believe in honor. I know Zuko didn't fall for that."

"He didn't," Mai said, grumpy. "But she also said she would look for his mother, and he can't do it himself obviously. No one else knows what happened on the night of her disappearance except for her and Ozai, who isn't telling Zuko anything. I told him to take her up on it as long as I went along too."

Ty Lee gasped, all her laughter gone. She put her hands over her mouth as she took several steps back, braid swaying behind her shoulders. The Kyoshi face paint did little to disguise Ty Lee's reactions. Mai saw her widened eyes and her puckered frown. She was upset. Or as upset as Ty Lee ever could be. 

Mai sighed as she waited for the lecture. 

“I don’t understand,” Ty Lee said. “I don’t understand any of this! Since when has Azula been willing to share about anything? What answers does Zuko expect her to give?"

"She's not, and he's not," Mai said. "But it's either that or she'll just leave on her own. And that would be even worse. I'm surprised she hasn't left already."

"But then why would you volunteer to go? She put us in prison. She was going to burn you! She was going to leave us to rot!” The shrillness of her voice pierced Mai’s ear, and she held her head in her gloved hand as she flinched. "If anybody should be volunteering to go, it should be me!"

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Mai said. “She put you in prison, too, remember." 

“Of course I remember!" Ty Lee palmed her eyes, which Mai saw were beginning to wet. She smeared her red and white makeup so that flashes of skin smudged through. "I thought about it every day! I tried to think if there was anything that I could have done differently but there wasn't." Ty Lee stalked to the window where she had left her tea and gulped at it. "Azula doesn’t believe in honor. Or if she does, she doesn’t care. She lies and cheats all the time. If you go, she'll turn on you again."

The Kyoshi colors blurred together was even more distasteful so Mai turned her gaze towards the pale, bland walls, and sighed. “I don’t know why you’re so upset.” 

“Because I should be the one going!” Ty Lee said as she went back to Mai, gripping her wrists with her hands. "I can handle her. I've proved that I can. You know that I can."

Mai refused to look at the mess Ty Lee's face had become. "You shouldn't be the one going," Mai said.

"Why not?" Ty Lee released Mai's hands and folded her arms across her chest, her boots tapping a rhythm against the heavily carpeted floor. 

"Because you're half in love with her. You always have been," Mai said. "Though I can't imagine why after everything. She doesn't deserve you."

Ty Lee stepped forward so that Mai was forced to step back until she was pressed against the wall under Ty Lee's shadow as she loomed over her. Ty Lee had her hands on her waist, as she always did on those rare moments when she was all righteous indignation about something. "Excuse me? Half in love with her? I know what she is and what she does. When I first saw her after I joined the circus, she came to see my show so that she could set the net on fire and cause a stampede. Not that she did any of these things herself, of course, she just ordered them to be done. But, even though I was terrified, even though sweat was pouring into my eyes because of the heat, I was still flattered that she had come to me first. She hadn't come to you, the one who was always bored, always wanting something to do, but to me. That means something! That has to. If anything, Azula is half in love with me!" 

Ty Lee was so close that her gaze was unavoidable. Mai could see every strand of flyaway hair that had escaped her braid. Mai couldn't help herself, and she began to count each hair to distract herself from the intensity that Ty Lee was exuding in every manner of her bearing, in very word that she spoke. Mai wondered what Azula would have threatened her with if she hadn't correctly anticipated that Mai would be only too glad to leave Omashu. 

But then the unbearable tower of will that Ty Lee had become melted as she hid her face in the hollow of Mai's neck. She was crying as she said, "Do you know how special that made me feel?" 

Mai patted her shoulder awkwardly with one hand. “There. There.” Of course she knew how special Azula could make people feel, with her well chosen words and actions. But they were lies, they were always lies. Azula didn't know how to love anybody.

"Don't you know?" Ty Lee insisted, her words coming out muffled and blurred by the fact she was still hiding her face. 

Mai looked away, looked at the wall with its fire emblemed tapestry hanging crooked. Someone should probably fix that. "You were closer than me all the way in Omashu. There's nothing special about that. That's the only reason she came to you first."

“Why do you always have to be so mean?" Ty Lee raised her head sniffling. Her Kyoshi Warrior paint was smeared, unsalvageable. Looking distinctly unpleasant as she continued to cry. 

Mai never knew what to do with people’s tears, and Ty Lee was still too close for her to think properly. “I don’t understand what any of this has to do with my decision to go with Azula.” 

“She was going to burn you, Mai.” Ty Lee lifted her hand to Mai’s face, pad of her thumb tracing the tender flesh under her left eye. "Or worse."

Mai caught Ty Lee’s wrist, and pulled it down so that she held it in the small space between their bodies. “She was going to try.” She bent her head, and Ty Lee bent hers at the same time so their foreheads touched each other. “I can take care of myself.” Though, she still wasn't sure what would have happened if Ty Lee hadn't intervened, if her knife had been aiming for flesh, or simply to catch Azula's clothes in the wood that they might try to escape. Her mouth dried, and she swallowed. 

“I know you can, but I worry,” Ty Lee whispered. "Azula would have killed you."

Or she would have killed Azula, maybe. Mai shifted against the wall. For a long time, until Azula had tried to kill the Avatar, she had thought Azula would not be able to kill someone. But then, she had done what she did to Aang, and then to Zuko. Her mouth twitched against her teeth as she remembered the scar Zuko bore against his chest, and once more, she was thankful for Katara’s presence, because she had saved him. And the only thing Azula had done was give him another scar. Mai had to keep reminding herself that Azula was powerless now, but it was hard to remember.

Ty Lee hugged herself—hinting, maybe, that Mai should be the one to do so instead of letting her do all the comforting. “See, I understand, Mai. I'm not some lovesick girl.” 

Like there was anything to say to that. 

Ty Lee glared at her—the same glare she’d given everyone on Ember Island. The one that had even stopped Azula’s cold laughter. Mai had thought about that often, when they had been in the prison. Maybe Ty Lee was the only one who had ever been able to stop Azula, drawing lines in the sand that she’d keep Azula from crossing again and again even if she had to knock her down to do it. But that wasn’t right either because Ty Lee had never told Azula _no_ in the long course of their friendship, not even once before.  

It didn’t make sense. Mai refused to go down a drainage pipe on the drill but Ty Lee—clean Ty Lee, beautiful Ty Lee, Ty Lee smelling like cinnamon—had thrown herself after their quarry. And it wasn’t like Azula had punished Mai for ignoring her order (too chastised by their defeat, possibly), but if anyone had been the one who had kept pushing and pushing against Azula multiple times it had been Mai, not Ty Lee. Azula shouldn’t have been surprised that it was Mai who had betrayed her first. Ty Lee had always gone along with everything—her face may have looked like her six other sisters, but she mirrored Azula in every other way that mattered, in every choice, in every action—except the very last one, the only one that had really mattered after all. 

The only reason it was hard for Mai to breathe in that moment was because Ty Lee was still standing too close to her, not because Ty Lee would let Azula do anything she wanted, would go along with whatever crazy scheme she came up with—except for the one that would have hurt Mai. Against all odds, Mai was the line that Ty Lee would never let Azula cross. The realization was overwhelming. “Your face is gross,” Mai said. “Why do you wear that stuff?” 

Ty Lee shrugged, made the i-don’t-know sound in her throat.  

Mai sighed as she fumbled for the handkerchief that she kept in her sleeve. She brought it to Ty Lee’s face. Obediently, Ty Lee closed her eyes, and Mai wiped the red and white paint from her skin. 

“Wait,” Ty Lee said, and Mai stopped. “I need to take this off.” Her fingers fumbled with her thick green-and-gold armor. 

“This was so uncomfortable,” Mai said, assisting her. “I don’t know why you’d ever want to join them.” 

“No, I don’t suppose you would.” Ty Lee slipped it over her head so that she was simply wearing her green kimono, which flowed over her in loose folds. There were sweat stains along her chest and her sides.  

“Are you done?” At Ty Lee’s nod, Mai renewed her attempts at cleaning her face. For being so skilled throwing a dagger, her fingers were strangely clumsy when it came to cleaning makeup off. It ran, bleeding over Ty Lee’s skin, staining Mai’s fingers and the rag and everything else. 

With her fingertips, she tipped Ty Lee’s chin up and to the side. It was then, when it was impossible for their eyes to meet so focused was Mai on cleaning the last traces of white from her, that Ty Lee said, “Maybe it would be okay for us three to be together again. Just like old times.” 

“Don’t feel obligated to accompany us,” Mai said. “I’m sure your sisters wouldn’t want to lose their newest recruit.” 

Ty Lee shrugged. “They’ll understand.” 

Mai rolled her eyes. 

“You’re always seeing things so negatively,” Ty Lee said. Why can’t you just believe me when I say that they’ll understand? They appreciate me. I’ve taught them things they’ve never known before. And I can teach them even more.”  

“Nobody forgets losing to the Fire Nation. Nobody forgives being sent to prison. Nobody makes room for the person who did that.” Mai turned Ty Lee’s face to the other side. “Whatever your position is with the Kyoshi Warriors now—it’s more complicated than you think it is. Once they have nothing to learn from you, they'll leave you behind. They won't forgive you. They won't forgive any of us.” She knew, because she didn't think she could ever forgive Azula, and together the three of them had done worse to the Kyoshi warriors than what Azula had done to them.  

Ty Lee held fast to Mai’s wrist, pressed her hand to her cheek as her eyes closed. “Don’t say that,” Ty Lee said, her breath tickling the delicate skin of Mai’s wrist. “Please don’t say that.” 

“I’ll keep it to myself next time.” Mai shook her head. “I don’t understand. You said you didn’t want to be part of a set. Then you join the Kyoshi Warriors? They dress the same. Their faces are the same. I don’t get it.” 

“You’re too used to being alone. Of course you wouldn't understand.” 

“I was with you and Azula. I'm with Zuko now. I'm a big sister. I'm not alone.” 

“You’re too used waiting for people to leave you. First your parents? Then Zuko? Then Azula?” Ty Lee shifted so that she was able to press herself closer to Mai, her hands resting on her shoulders. “Then…me? You knew I would have to return with them to Kyoshi Island eventually. It was just a matter of when. You were just trying to leave first by going with Azula and leaving me behind.” 

Mai rested her head against the wall, her eyes closed. She let the dirty rag drop from her fingers to the floor, and she didn't have the energy to argue with Ty Lee anymore. “What do you want from me?” 

"I want you to stay here with Zuko," Ty Lee said. "I want you to be happy. I'll go with Azula by myself."

"I'm never happy," Mai said. "But I'm not staying behind. It's the best way that I can help Zuko find his mother."

Ty Lee stood on tiptoes so that she could press a kiss to Mai's cheek. "Fine, since I can't convince you to stay here. We'll both go. It's decided--no takebacks." 

Mai blushed from Ty Lee's kiss, but she nodded. "Then you go back to Kyoshi Island, and I'll come back here." She looked at Ty Lee, who had taken her hand. "Don't cry," Mai said. "Nothing's even happened yet. You're so emotional."

"I can't help it," Ty Lee said. "I already miss you. I already feel like something terrible is going to happen, and we'll never see each other again. I couldn't bear for that to happen, for something to happen to us."

"The only way we won't see each other is if you don't visit," Mai said. She didn't say the other thing that she was thinking, that Azula could kill one or both of them before they were through, before either one of them could return to their homes. "You're getting ahead of yourself. We still have the whole journey ahead of us, wherever it may take us." Or however it might end.

"I can't believe you were going to do this alone," Ty Lee said. "She hurt us both. It's only right we heal together." 

Mai rolled her eyes, but allowed herself to be hugged one last time as she left Ty Lee's chamber and returned to her own home. She didn't care about healing, like Ty Lee did. She didn't think it was possible to heal from what Azula had done to them. It would just be a scar, an invisible scar somewhere inside of her. Just something else to make her aura dirty and dingy.

She bit her lip as she leaned over Tom-Tom's cradle. He was sleeping, with his eyes wrinkled shut. 

It felt fitting that the three of them would do this one last thing together, but it also felt wrong. They had been together for too long already, and they needed to make new friends, forge new bonds.

Maybe that was what Ty Lee had meant when she had tried to explain why she had joined the Kyoshi Warriors. 

And yet here they were, forming the same pattern after it had been broken, instead of getting on with their lives.

She should speak with Zuko. She should ask that the arrangements be made in secret so that Ty Lee would not be able to come, that she would have no choice but to go with the Kyoshi Warriors to their island, and make her new life without Azula's shadow.

But after speaking with Ty Lee, she knew that she didn't want to do this thing by herself. Maybe it was because she was still afraid of Azula, or maybe it was because she wasn't ready for Ty Lee to leave for Kyoshi Island--that she would miss Ty Lee so much when she was gone. Maybe she wasn't ready for their lives to change completely. 

At least this way, they would be able to say goodbye to their old lives, to the people in their past, and once they had finished this journey, they could start new, with no regrets, no questions, no what ifs.

Or they could fall into the same habit of each other, and never truly break free. She could see that happening too.

Mai closed her eyes. "What do you think, Tom-Tom?" she whispered.

But he just slept, and eventually Mai did the same.


	10. Interlude: Come and Get It

It didn't take long for Azula to establish a status quo at the academy: there was her, there were her friends, Mai and Ty Lee, and then there was everybody else who didn't matter. Nobody said anything about them anymore. Nobody rolled their eyes. Nobody looked at them. Nobody touched them, and anyone who tried? Got burned--not literally though sometimes Azula thought about it. The other girls at school knew their place, and they normally didn't try to upset the balance that Azula had established.

Which was why it was such a surprise when Eun-jae told them they could not study at the table of their choice because she had been there first. She refused to move, staring at her parchment and her ink that was still glossy and wet, pretending to review what she had written even as she snuck glances at the three of them. A cup of tea was turning cold beside her.

Azula curled the back of her hand against her waist. “What exactly do you mean by that?” 

Ty Lee danced around Eun-jae. “It’s just the most lovely table! So why shouldn't Azula not be able to sit there?”  

Azula snapped her fingers and Ty Lee fell silent. “Can we possibly give Eun-jae time to answer my question before we praise the admirable attributes of the table?” 

Ty Lee immediately flitted back to her side. “I’m sorry, Azula.” 

Eun-jae stared between the three of them. “Seriously? You’re just going to do whatever she tells you? Like you’re her pet?” 

“Azula helped me,” Ty Lee said. “What kind of person would I be if I wasn't her friend? Why that'd be unkind or unpleasant or--”

"Ungrateful?" Mai said in her flat voice as she glanced sideways at Azula. 

"Yes! That's the word I'm looking for," Ty Lee said, smiling.

Azula strode closer towards Eun-jae, looming over her even though she was smaller by a head than the other girl. “As I recall, you were one of the students who didn’t want Ty Lee or Mai around, weren’t you? You called them both names, but now that they're with me, you're just so concerned for their wellbeing.” She folded her arms, tutted her tongue, and sighed. “It's almost as if you want to their friend, but that would be impossible.” Azula slung her arm around Ty Lee’s shoulder as she repositioned her long braid so that it wasn't in her way. “What do you think about that, Ty lee?”  

“I think you and Mai have been the nicest girls to me. I’ve never felt so welcomed." Ty Lee smiled at Eun-jae. "Did you want to be our friend too, Eun-jae?” 

“Don't bother her with a question like that. Of course she doesn’t want to be friends with us.” Azula’s voice was sharp. “She doesn’t like me." In a stage whisper, Azula added, "She’s jealous.” 

Ty Lee lifted herself on her tiptoes. “But who wouldn’t be jealous of you, Azula? You’re perfect.” 

“I know I am—and the sooner other people learn that the better.” Azula turned towards Mai who had remained silent and still throughout the exchange, her gaze sharp as the knife that glistened from her sleeve. “But what does Mai think of all this?” 

“I don’t care,” Mai said. “She’s probably one of those stupid girls who want what they can’t have.” 

Eun-jae pushed herself to her feet, fists clenched at her side, smoking as she barely contained fire that wanted to lash out. Azula didn’t even bother dropping into an offensive stance as she waited for Eun-jae to throw the first blow. After all, the only story people cared about was the one who started it and the one who finished it. 

“You think you’re all that,” Eun-jae hissed, “but you’re the same as everyone else here—eight years old, lonely for Mom and Dad, and thinks she’s better than she probably is.” 

Azula smiled at her. “Challenge me to an Agni Kai then. And then we’ll see how better than you I really am.” 

Mai blinked, eyes sliding to glare at Azula, even as Ty Lee quivered with barely sustained laughter at the look on Eun-jae’s face. 

“Agni Kai?” Eun-jae said. “Over a school room quarrel? How dare you.” 

“You were the one who said I wasn’t as good as I thought I was,” Azula said. “You were the one that made it a matter of honor—after all, why would I dishonor myself with falsehoods of my own ability? You questioned my honor so why don’t you do the right thing and challenge it as well?” Azula leaned in close, whispering in her ear. “Don’t worry—you needn’t fear I’ll reject your challenge. I’ll accept.” She smiled at her, a smile that was nothing but teeth. 

“You’re crazy,” Eun-jae said. “Nobody fights an Agni Kai over something like this. Nobody does it when they’re just kids.” 

Azula inspected her nails. “I thought you were a lot of things, Eun-jae, but not a coward.” 

“I’m not scared!” Eun-jae shouted, rushing to her feet. 

“Then why don't you prove it.” Azula sang the words as she stepped onto the table, walked over Eun-jae's parchment and ink, and knocked over the half empty cup of tea so that it spilled, running and ruining Eun-jae's work. Azula towered over her. “Challenge me.” 

Eun-jae huffed and puffed her indignation but said nothing, even though her hands gripped the ruined tatters of her parchment, smearing her skin with its ink. Then Azula swung away, dropping lightly down to the floor as she called for Ty Lee and Mai. They swaggered from the room. Azula counted the seconds as she waited for Eun-jae to change her mind. 

“Fine,” Eun-jae called, her voice sullen and reluctant. “Azula, I challenge you.” 

Azula paused, cupped her hand over her ear, and turned to Mai. “Did you hear someone?” 

Mai slid her glance over to Eun-jae, and shook her head. 

“Ty Lee?” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Azula.” Ty Lee giggled behind her hand. "I didn't hear anything."

Eun-jae fairly shouted it then—loud enough to cause the other students to pause from their studies. Loud enough to reveal the tremor in her voice. “Azula, I challenge you to an Agni Kai.” 

“And I accept,” Azula said. “Sundown. Don’t be late. I hate waiting.” 

After they retired to their quarters, Azula flung herself on the bed and counted the moments until it would be time to face Eun-jae. Her room smelled faintly like cinnamon from the pressed fire lily petals that Li and Lo had sent to her, so that she would always have something to remind her of home. She had stuffed the gift under her bed. What did she care about such things? 

“You’re not going to practice?” Mai said, throwing her knife at a board she’d hung on the wall. It was peppered with holes, some near the center target, but most falling wide the mark. This one was no exception. 

“I’m already prepared," Azula said as she yawned. "I breathe fire. It’s in me and part of me. Those other girls try to use it like a tool because they don't understand anything.” Azula opened one eye. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand either.” 

Mai looked down at her fingers, then at the knife stuck in the target, still so wide its mark. She retrieved it, and began to play with it—twirling it through her fingers, learning its weight, the way it moved in her palm. 

Azula smiled. Mai caught on so fast. She’d better watch out, Azula supposed, one day. These girls weren’t hungry enough to bite the hand that fed them—not yet, at least. 

Ty Lee sprawled on the bed beside her. “Forgive me, Azula, because I'm not a firebender and I just don't know much about Ani Kais. But don't they end when someone inflicts the first burn? So where are you going to do it?” 

“Someplace she won’t soon forget. She’s always—“ Azula let the sentence dangle. She hated Eun-jae. Hated her face, the way she was always challenging her, instead of just letting her be like everyone else had learned to do. 

Ty Lee smiled at her. "Always talking too much? Always saying mean things?" There was something in her eyes that gave Azula pause. Ty Lee wanted to live through her. She couldn't hurt Eun-jae herself--at least not without getting in big trouble--but she could imagine all the terrible things that Azula could do to her.

Mai sighed. “I don’t get why you care about her, Azula. It’s not like she’s ever insulted you.” Mai stooped to pick up her knife, which she had fumbled and dropped. 

“Because I’m not a big blah like you,” Azula said easily. “I don’t like it when people think they’re better than me when they’re not. Besides, it’s simple tactics. Eun-jae used to the be most popular girl in school. Take her down, and our position as the top girls will be assured forever. And besides, a story like this, two girls dueling an Agni Kai? They won't stop talking about it. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”  

On cue, Ty Lee spoke. “That sounds amazing, Azula! I’ve never been popular before.” 

Mai was a big downer, as usual. “I don’t know about fun. Maybe useful. It’d be fun telling those other girls what to do. Stop talking about stupid things. Stop laughing so loud.” 

“See,” Azula said as she slid off the bed and slung her arms around them. Ty Lee hugged her close but Mai let her arms stay still by her side. “You’re beginning to think like me now.” 

Sunset came soon and, just as the first ribbons of pink spun itself across the sky, Azula, flanked by her girls, went to the meeting place. 

“Do you think she’ll actually come?” Mai said, twirling her knife. Azula counted fifty rotations before she dropped it. She was already getting better. 

“Of course she will,” Azula said. “She has too much to risk if she doesn’t show because I'll call her coward and nobody will respect her. She'll lose everything.If she comes I’ll win—and she’ll still lose everything. It’s perfect.” 

“Just like you,” Ty Lee said in a lilting sing-song. 

Azula smiled. 

To the side, Mai rolled her eyes, and flung her knife into the trunk of a tree. Azula considered mentioning that Mai could perhaps show a little more enthusiasm—but that was her way. Loyalty was all that mattered. Being happy about it wasn’t entirely necessary. That was what Ty Lee was for. 

“So there you are,” Eun-jae said behind her. 

Azula tried to put on the bored inflection that Mai had perfected so well. “You sound surprised. Disappointed?” 

Eun-jae scoffed. “Of course not. I’m not one to duck from a challenge.” 

Azula paced some distance away with Mai and Ty Lee trailing after her. With her back toward Eun-jae, she removed her shoulder covering, a little early perhaps, and draped it around around Ty Lee’s shoulder—who was shivering in the cool evening air. Then she knelt and heard Eun-jae follow suit.

“Whoever burns the other first,” Eun-jae said. 

“You think that I don’t know the rules? Enough talk.” Azula rose to her feet and dropped into an offensive stance, grounding her root. She didn’t open with fire, but struck Eun-jae’s mouth as she approached. 

Eun-jae didn’t duck in time, and she took it hard enough to fall to her knees. She spat blood, and it stained the grass. 

“I wasn’t even using fire that time,” Azula said. “You're not doing a good job at impressing me. I was at least hoping for a real challenge.” 

Eun-jae retaliated with fire from her foot as she swung her legs around to ward Azula away, but she danced out of reach of the flames. Eun-jae tried to move in closer, her body clumsily executing martial arts that Azula had trained to master since she was small. 

Azula flowed away, twisting around so that she kept Eun-jae always off balance as she tried to follow her instead of anticipating her moves. 

Finally, Eun-jae stopped, her breath coming in heaving pants that would never reach her stomach to stoke the fire resting within. “You haven’t returned my fire with fire. What kind of Agni Kai are you fighting?” 

Azula laughed. “The one that will embarrass and humiliate you the most.” Azula darted in close, kneeing Eun-jae in the stomach. She pushed her backwards with one foot so that she sprawled heavily to the ground, wind knocked out of her. Azula stepped back, guiding her breath into her stomach with a flat, downward motion of her hand, as she waited for Eun-jae to climb back to her feet. 

“You’re never going to win if you keep fighting that way.” Eun-jae gasped for breath as she tried to find her balance. “You have to burn me, not knock me on my back.” 

“That doesn’t mean we can’t have a little bit of fun first,” Azula said. “Look at you. Already so tired. Barely able to breathe." Her voice hardened. "Didn’t anyone ever tell you that a firebender’s power comes from the breath?” And, for the first time, Azula unleashed a powerful burst of fire towards Eun-jae’s stupid, terrified face. 

Eun-jae ducked clumsily beneath the blow and struck out with her foot as she rolled away. Azula dispelled it with a circular motion of her arms, then aimed to scorch the ground beneath Eun-jae’s feet as she scrambled backwards. In her attempt to get away, she tripped and sprawled flat on her face.

Azula sprang, lithe as a cat, and crawled on top of her back so that she could grab her by the hair and flip her over. She pinned her wrists to the ground with her feet, her knees digging into the fleshy, tender bits of Eun-jae’s shoulder, while her left fist pushed down hard against her sternum. “You're trapped and have nowhere to go, nothing left,” Azula said, flattening her hand so that she could press down with more leverage. Her fingertips brushed the delicate structure of the girl’s clavicle leading up to her neck, wet with sweat and smoke and ash. “Are you scared of me yet?” 

Eun-jae stuck her chin out as well as she could, smothered as she was by Azula’s weight. She squirmed as she tried to throw Azula off. “Why don’t you just finish it!” 

“Don’t worry—I will,” Azula said. “I’m just savoring the moment.” Eun-jae’s body went limp beneath her, all struggle snuffed out. Pathetic. Azula could see the tremor of a pulse rabbiting softly under her skin, the earth of her body shaking and quivering like a nervous volcano. Maybe she should burn her there, right there, at the soft yield of her throat where she’d never be able to hide it, no matter how hard she tried.  

“You can’t do it,” Eun-jae whispered. “You might be better than me, but you can’t finish what you start.” 

Azula shook her. “Shut up! You're defeated!” 

Eun-jae buttoned up her lips and stared up at the darkening sky. "Not until you finish it, I'm not."

“I guess anywhere will do. It’s not like I care about you one way or another.” Azula raised her right hand, flames blossoming from her palm. She looked around to see if Mai and Ty Lee were watching. Mae was leaning against a tree—almost smiling, her knife clutched in her hand as she leaned forward. Ty Lee? She didn’t see Ty Lee. She must be behind her, for a better view. Maybe she should do what Ty Lee suggested--Eun-jae talked too much, and she said annoying things. 

Eun-jae smiled through her bloody split lip. “Anywhere? You can’t do it. You talk big, but you’re still just a kid.” 

The flame erupted hotter and higher, and Azula hissed, “I’ll show you what I am.” Why couldn’t she decide? Why couldn't she do it? Something held her back, poisoned her with indecision. She hadn't imagined the way Eun-jae would still squirm, the way she could feel her heart beat against her hand. The way her eyes screwed up as her fire burned brighter and brighter. Her father would shake his head if he could see her now, he would turn away from her to read the latest news of the war, he would say he was too busy to be bothered with someone who would only disappoint him, who would only embarrass him. The flame grew hotter with the faintest shimmer of its blue heart and she aimed the light toward Eun-jae's face.  

Then huge hands grabbed her by the shoulders, bending her arm back so that her fire was snuffed out, and they dragged her from Eun-jae’s prone body.  

Azula shrieked, her legs kicking futilely at her captor’s knees. Eun-jae breathed and rolled away, her face relaxing into an open mouthed smile when she saw that she had been rescued, while Mai stood suddenly still, slipping her knife into her sleeve as she stared at Ty Lee. Ty Lee flitted to Mai, knuckles to her mouth as her eyes darted side to side as Azula was led away, suffering a scolding from the administrators who had broken up the fight. 

It was awful. 

Ursa came the next day—looking regal in face and bearing, as if she were Fire Lady and maybe she should be, Azula thought, scowling. Ursa discussed the “unfortunate” incident with the head administrators, though she could spare no glance for Azula who sat right next to her. It was as if she wasn’t there at all. If her father was Firelord, Azula was convinced this wouldn’t be happening because nobody would dare question her actions or stop her from doing anything she wanted. 

Her mouth settled into an angry frown. She wanted Mai and Ty Lee. Where were they? Would they be waiting outside the doors or had they already abandoned her in her humiliation? 

She would make every one of them pay. 

When she was done speaking with the school officials, Ursa took Azula hard by the shoulder. Mom didn't treat her like she did Zuko.

Sometimes watching them when they were together made Azula nauseous, made her want to hit something. 

But, as Ursa tugged her down the paths to some private place, somewhere quiet beneath the trees with their falling pink blossoms, Azula thought about how she would sometimes touch Zuko by the elbow, gently guiding him, as they walked together in the gardens, speaking softly with each other. 

Then there were times where he sat at her feet, and she gently brushed his stray hair from his forehead, and kissed him in the empty space she had made.

For Azula, Mom would run a gold comb inlaid with jade through her hair as she murmured small compliments about how lovely it was, as if it were the only admirable quality about her. 

Azula tried to wrench herself from Ursa’s grasp and failed.  

Once they were far from over eager ears, they stopped, and Ursa released her. Azula folded her arms, and waited. 

Ursa turned away from her towards the trees, and pressed a slender hand against the rough bark. “What were you thinking, Azula?” 

“I was thinking that it was a shame I was interrupted from my victory,” Azula said. “No one would dare have done that to Father.” 

Ursa’s shoulders tightened as she hunched over, curling inwards into something defensive. Azula’s eyes narrowed, and she prowled around her mother.  

“You are not your father—“ the words came slowly, as if from a great distance. 

“But I am,” Azula said. “Don't you see?” 

“And are you also not my daughter?” Ursa said, finally turning that she might face her, moving in sync with Azula that their eyes might meet. “Or are you only concerned with what your father would do, what your father would think of you?” 

Azula kicked the grass until small flying insects fluttered from the wrath of her boots, from their impending doom. “What Father would do is make things better for all of us.” 

“Things don’t need to be better. They’re fine as they are. Why would you say otherwise?” 

“Oh yes,” Azula said. “Both you and Dad are truly the pictures of happiness as you wander the halls with your frowns, your lonely cups of tea, your—crying.” 

Ursa’s face shuttered close, and she broke her long stare from Azula to face the tree once more. Azula thrilled that she knew something she should not have known, that her mother thought she had kept well hidden from her. She flexed her hands, feeling the fire gathering, still hot from the fight even though it was so long ago. 

She didn’t know what was more powerful—this knowledge or bending or both together. She dizzied under the sudden light headedness that hollowed her chest into a pit, stoking air into her stomach. 

“And how--” Ursa’s voice came back, thin and hollow as a reed, “would challenging a young girl to a pointless Agni Kai make anything better or anyone happy? More conflict is never the answer.” 

“I don't understand why you're scolding me. She was the one who challenged me to the Agni Kai!” Azula tugged at a low hanging branch and pulled it free. She ripped the tender new leaves off as she spoke. “I was just as surprised as you. But what could I say—no?” 

“Yes,” Ursa said, taking the branch from Azula. Azula held on to it briefly, just long enough to make Ursa work for it, then abruptly let it go. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that it was her that challenged you and not the other way around? You have a competitive streak that runs through you, Azula.” 

“Would I lie to my own mother?" Azula braced her fists against her waist. 

“Yes, I believe you would,” Ursa said. “And besides, if Eun-jae was truly the one who challenged you, then you should have said no.” 

“And be that girl too scared to take on one of the best firebenders in the Fire Nation Academy?” Azula scowled. “No, thank you. There was no other answer but to accept.” 

“You could have chosen to be her friend—you probably could have learned much from her."

Azula laughed. "I had her beaten from the beginning. What could she have taught to me? I suppose she could have taught me to lose a fight but who wants to learn how to do that."

"Why do you not care about friendship? Care? Compassion? Do these things mean nothing to you?" Ursa shook her head, and stared at her daughter.

Azula hugged herself tight. “I have friends.” She would know they were her true friends if they were still waiting for her after she dealt with the authority figures telling her how to act and what to do. “They’re Mai and Ty Lee.” 

“Mai?” Ursa looked at Azula differently.

And in that instant, Azula swore she saw herself looking from her mother’s eyes. Her skin chilled as she braced herself for what Ursa would say next. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good. The look that burned in her mother’s eyes meant to hurt. “Do you know who her father is? He’s a low ranking politician who has been sniffing for opportunities to make himself more powerful. I’m sure you understand that.” Then she did the unbearable—kneeling before her so they were eye level. Azula hated when adults did this. It made her feel so small. She flashed her teeth as Ursa put her hands on her shoulders. “I think that their daughter being friends with a member of the royal family would do wonders for their political career. What do you think?” 

Azula stilled for a moment. The promise of hurt that Ursa had held in her eyes had made their mark because Mai had never mentioned her parents—but then, she had also never asked for favors on her parents’ behalf. Mai hadn’t even flattered Azula. Rather, she learned. She imitated. She wanted to be like Azula (and that was safe because nobody could be as Azula as Azula could be), and she didn’t want to use Azula for someone else. Still, perhaps it was something to watch out for. Azula rallied. “Isn’t that what you did—married a prince to escape your washed up town?” 

Mom stood, and Azula grinned up at her.  

“I’m sure that the palace fares more pleasantly than whatever hut you lived in before. Now you have servants at your beck and call. Hot water to heat your baths. Nothing but the very best for your children after all. And I’m sure you want more than that—everybody wants more.” 

“And what do you want, Azula?” 

Azula smiled. "For father to be Firelord so we all get what we want."

Ursa frowned, and looked as if she were to kneel again, but changed her mind. “Do you understand what you’re saying? Your father is not in line for the throne. Your Uncle Iroh is, and after him, your cousin, Lu Ten.” 

“You're right, of course, but the Fire Nation is always marching to war.” Azula smiled slyly. “Bad things happen to people in battle. Grandfather always sends Uncle Iroh to lead his armies, the great dragon of the west, but even dragons can be killed. When that happens, Father will sit the throne, and he will have whatever he wants, and everything will be better. And I’ll be right there—at his side, in the war chambers, on the battlefield. We’ll be the greatest Firelords in history.” 

Ursa pulled back, her face sad. “What is wrong with you, Azula? You have everything you could possibly need, possibly want, but you wish for your family's death?” 

Azula shrugged. “I'm not saying it wouldn't be sad if they died."

“I can't believe my own daughter would say something so horrible.” 

A cold silence held between them. “Can we go back now?”  

“Whatever you want, Azula.” Ursa sighed, and turned up the path, but Azula quickly brushed beyond her, leaving her behind as she went to find her friends, if they were yet loyal to her.

She found them waiting for her, because what else would they be doing but waiting for her to return to them. Mai was still playing with her knife, and Ty Lee was stretching. "Come along, girls," Azula said, and they followed her without a moment's hesitation.


	11. Here We Are Now

Mai couldn’t just barge back into her life. Ty Lee couldn’t just barge back into her life. What gave them the right when Azula had banished them? 

Though, perhaps there was some comfort to be found. After all, they had only returned when she did not have the power of a princess nor the power of a firebender.

But she hated they were probably her only way out of the palace, that it would be too much to hope that Zuko would let her go alone. 

Azula stretched, trying to forget the exhaustion and the headache that had settled at the base of her skull. Even though Zuko's deliberation frustrated her, she probably would have made the same decision if their roles had been reversed—but it chafed knowing that he would be the one who had final say over what happened to her. 

She wondered, briefly, if the throne room was still fringed with blue flame—but that had probably died too with the rest of her power. 

Azula pressed her fist against her sternum, tried to throttle the rapid beating of her heart, the twisted up energy blocking her chi, the collapsed hollow cavity her chest had become that made it so hard to breathe. 

She needed to get out of here. 

This place was too depressing. It wasn’t fair she was being treated like this. Even Zuko had not been so humiliated as to be permanently grounded in his own room like some child. She pulled her clothes closer to her, and slipped from her room, past the guards whose breaths smelled of rice wine from too much celebrating. She never would have stood for such negligence if she were Firelord, but she wasn't anymore--not that she had ever been. Besides, it wasn't as if they couldn't easily find her if she escaped, not with the Avatar helping as he surely would since and he and Zuko were such great friends now.

Her skin itched as she crept down the old familiar halls of the palace, missing the blue flame she had once used to light her way. She stared at her own empty palms, her fingers clenching into fists as she scowled at her treacherous limbs. She'd cut off her own hand if it meant the other would once again burn with the fire that had once been hers and that she had lost. 

So many times she had flitted down these halls—when she was smaller and littler. But once Zuko had been banished, there had been little occasion to walk down this particular corridor, into this particular chamber. The first night he was gone, she had come to his room, sat on his empty bed. His belongings were still in their drawers, along with a portrait of their mother. She had stared at it for too long a time before putting it away. There had been a sheet of parchment at his desk, in case he had had occasion to write a letter, like he had the second time he left. 

She had found Mai sulking, holding the letter that Zuko had written her, trying to explain why he was betraying his Nation and his father as he went to join the Avatar because it was his destiny, apparently. Blah blah blah--he had gone on and on. Azula had read Mai's letter several times because of course Zuko had left nothing for her. Father had been so unhappy, so displeased— 

Azula shook those memories from her when she saw the familiar glow of lamplight bleeding from under his door, and she pushed against it and slipped inside.

Zuko was asleep in the bed, propped up by pillows. There was a scroll on his lap. He must have been working when he fell asleep. 

His scar could have been just a shadow in the light. She wondered how it felt—wondered if that side of his face felt heavier, uglier, flawed. She already knew his vision was weaker if not completely blind on that side. His hearing, too, was nearly gone from the shriveled shell of his ear. She always made sure to attack him there, so he couldn’t quite see or hear her coming.  

Not that it had done her any good. 

She shoved his shoulder. “Wake up, Zuzu.” 

He did, sleepy and confused, rubbing his good eye with the heel of his hand. “Azula?” His voice was soft, like her name wasn’t something distasteful to him. 

It should have been, though. People should always twist her name through their teeth, because if it lingered too long on their tongue, they’d burn. 

Then the sleep-haze lifted like fog, and he jerked upwards, the scroll toppling from his knees to the floor. “Azula!” 

She wondered if he thought that she could have done anything in this moment—that she could have killed him, if she had wished. And then she wondered why that hadn’t occurred to her until after he was awake. She was slipping, losing her grip. Father would be so disappointed. 

“You can’t just come in here when people are sleeping!” 

“Of course I can because your guards are worthless--you should probably do something about that,” Azula said. “And besides, we've been surprising each other awake since we were kids, Zuko. Relax.” She wrapped her arm around one of the bed posters, and leaned towards him. “After all, it’s not like I’m going to try and murder you in your sleep--though I certainly could have.” 

He stiffened. “What do you want, Azula?” 

She looked at her hands, at her nails. Li and Lo never let her grow them long anymore. “It’s not the first time I haven't acted against you. Don't you remember that night when Father was going to kill you?” 

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Zuko said. 

Azula sat on the bed, near his feet. “Well, I do. You should have stayed, Zuko, instead of running like a coward after I pulled you behind the curtain so that we could watch our father’s conversation with Grandpa.” She tilted her head to look at him, her fingers running through her hair. “Did you know that father bears a scar? Grandpa gave it to him in a place no one would see. The screams were terrible—just as bad as your own, when Father passed his own scars to you. If you had stayed with me, if you had watched with me, you would have known it was nothing personal.” 

“You’re lying,” Zuko said. 

“Oh, I assure you I'm not. Maybe you should ask him about it when you visit him next.” She smirked and covered her eye with her hand. “Do you wish that Father had paid you the same courtesy? But I suppose dishonoring your father in public demands a public retribution.” 

“I didn’t dishonor him,” Zuko said. “What he did to me was cruel, and I don’t want to talk about this with you." 

Azula played with his red coverlet, admiring the way it slid so smoothly through her fingers. “Do you remember what I said when I came to your room that night? I think about it often—but I suppose you wouldn't since it must be such a bad memory. You must know the pain of a firstborn son by losing your own. Those were Grandfather’s words, but they sound familiar—don’t you think?” She raised her eyes towards Zuko as she deepened her voice. “You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher." 

Zuko made as if to lunge at her, but she could see that his desire lacked the will, and so she stayed where she was. He aborted the action, pulled himself back. “Does this have a point?” 

“It does. Because I saved your life that night, so you owe me, and now I'm calling in the favor. Grandfather wasn't making an empty threat, and you know that just as well as I do.” 

He stared at her, his mouth gaping—protests already taking shape on his mouth. 

“I didn’t have to say anything,” she said, her voice rising. “I am not a messenger! I could have just watched behind a curtain as Father came for you, but I didn’t.” She looked up, her hair slipping and sliding down her back. “Instead, I warned you, and I told Mom what happened. And that saved your life because she did something treacherous that night and then paid the ultimate price." She glared at him, and then she broke her gaze, forcing a laugh. "Honestly, I don't know why I bothered to warn you. It's not like you or Mom were grateful, and you were still banished three years later, like nothing that happened that night mattered." She fell silent and stared at her lap.

“So why didn’t you just let him take me then,” Zuko said. “Become an only child like you've always wanted.” 

Azula sighed, flopping back on the bed with her arms stretched out, the muscles in her stomach pulled taut. She could feel Zuko's feet in the small of her back. “You could just say thank you and repay the favor. After all, I am asking nicely. Just because you’re Firelord now doesn’t mean you just forget your manners.” 

Zuko scoffed. “I'm sorry if I’m not groveling over one good deed you supposedly did for me. Never mind the fact you gloated about it and then tried to kill me later anyway. You probably didn’t even tell Mom anything useful because you’re a—“ 

“Monster?” Azula filled in. “Oh no, I told Mom everything I knew—she didn’t want to believe but she did in the end. She always knew Father better than you.” She remembered the smoke seeping through her mother's robe, and the room became very distant, Zuko a mere blur on the edge of her vision. “She always knew how cruel he could be.” 

“What are you talking about?” Zuko said. His voice was hesitant, wavering, like he wanted to know the truth but also not know. 

Frowns flickered across Azula’s face as she gazed at the ceiling. The memories were there, veiled in trickling smoke. She hadn't thought about them for a long time because they didn't matter now--it had happened and it was time to move on--but still there was Father's hand underneath her mother's sleeve. She could see her mother's face in the ceiling, the sweat on her skin, the way her teeth worried her mouth.

“What did he do to her?” Zuko said, his voice hard. 

“He hurt her, Zuko. Obviously.” Her voice was shrill and high. "And I'm not even talking about the banishment. You always said that our family used to be happy, but you were wrong. It never was. You just saw what Mom wanted you to see because she wanted to protect you. She always could be strong for you." 

Zuko said nothing for a moment, but then he shuffled closer towards her. “You’re lucky that he never did that stuff to you. That suffering was never your teacher.” 

“Of course, I don't suffer, Zuko," Azula said. "I was always the smart one or the lucky one depending on who you ask. But you're right it didn't hurt when Mom left, when she didn't even say thank you. When she didn't even say goodbye.” 

“She woke me up before she left,” Zuko said. “She told me to never forget who I was and that she loved me."

"Aren't you lucky," Azula said. “Everybody just loves you, Zuko. For a long time, I thought you had Mom and I had Dad, but in the end, you had them both. Dad never stopped thinking about you. Every time you left, he talked about you. Talked about what you had done. Talked about how frustrated and shamed and embarrassed he was by you. He would rage at you, and the throne room would burn so hot and so bright. There was not one day he did not speak your name.” She hung her head low as she laughed. “And people call me selfish.” 

Zuko pointed at his scar. He was angry again. “What has Dad ever done to you, huh?”  

“Maybe Dad was wrong,” Azula said, heaving a sigh as she pulled herself to her feet. “Maybe it wasn't that you were lucky to be born, but that you were born loved, and I was just born. I’m okay with that, of course, but you’re the one always whining about it. Grow up, Zuko, and realize how good you have it.”  

She went to leave, but Zuko caught her wrist. “Azula—“ 

“This conversation has gotten so very maudlin, when it doesn't matter and the hurts are so old that it's silly to be bothered by them anymore." She twisted her own hand so that she wrenched herself from his grasp. "But I saved your life, Zuko, so you owe me. Let me go find out what happened to Mom, and let me leave by the end of the week. I can’t stand another minute here, and I know that I won’t make it far with the Avatar and your armies hounding me—but I’ll go that path if I have to.” 

He didn’t call her back when she reached the door, and she didn’t bother looking back to make sure he had listened.


	12. A Moment Between Mai and Zuko

Mai and Zuko lounged on their couch, each in a corner, their arms crossed. Mai wondered if Zuko would let her come close to him, or if he just wanted to be left alone or if he just needed space and company. It was hard to tell sometimes, like it was hard to tell if she just wanted to leave or if she just wanted to stay or if she just wanted to not. 

She sighed. 

Zuko mirrored her sigh. “Are you sure you want—"  

Mai tucked her chin into her shoulder and glared somewhere off to the side. “I don’t want to talk about that, Zuko. You can't change my mind.”  

“Well, what do you want to talk about then?” Zuko said, his mouth scowling like it sometimes did.  

“We could say nothing.” There were things she wanted to talk to him about--like how she was afraid that they would fall into old patterns with just the three of them, but he would only try to make her stay if she did. “People always run out of things to say. My parents have been having the same conversation for years. They pretend not to notice, but it’s boring.” 

“So you prefer silence?” 

“Sometimes.” Mai studied her nails. They were still apart. He was still upset with her, or maybe he wasn't and she just thought he might be. She focused on Zuko's half drunk cup of tea, which was easier to look at than his face. It reminded her of his uncle, and how she wasn't sure how to act with them both in the room. She was unsure if Iroh welcomed her, unsure even if she wanted to be welcomed by him. Azula had said things about him that made her unsure of how she should feel about him, and then there was the familiar cold anger that she was still listening to Azula, even now after all this time.

"I want to tell you something, Mai," Zuko said. "But I don't want you to freak out because it's probably nothing."

She raised her head. "What?"

"There's been rumors that there is a group of people who are not happy that I am Firelord. They want my father back on the throne, and they're calling themselves the New Ozai Society."

Mai remained very still on the couch. Azula had renamed Omashu New Ozai, but she probably wouldn't even remember that. Besides, how could she create such a society imprisoned in the palace? She had no way to communicate with the outside world. The only other people who had been in charge of New Ozai were her parents, but they would be glad that she was with the Firelord. It would do wonders for their political career. Except for the part where Zuko had removed her father from his governorship and offered him a minor government position that he had since turned down to spend more time with his family, especially since Mai would not be there to help with Tom-Tom anymore.

"What is it, Mai?"

"The name of this group," Mai said. "Why would they name themselves after an Earth Kingdom colony?"

"Perhaps you're taking it too literally. Maybe they just want my father's new age, even if he can't bend or use the power of a comet anymore." 

"You're not understanding me, Zuko." Mai tried to remember everything her parents had said about Zuko, but they had said hardly anything, though her mother was glad to be back in the heart of the Fire Nation. She had never liked it in Omashu, no matter what she said. 

"You're right--I'm not," Zuko said. "What's wrong?"

"My father was the governor of New Ozai. I'm sure you haven't forgotten since you officially gave it back to King Bumi."

Zuko laughed, but stopped when he saw her face. "Oh come on, Mai. You can't possibly suspect your parents of this? Your parents love me."

"I don't know what I think," Mai said, folding her arms over her chest. "I just think it's a coincidence that maybe you shouldn't ignore."

"Have they ever said anything about wanting my father back on the throne?"

Mai glowered at him. "Not to me. But why would they say anything to me? I already betrayed Azula for you. They wouldn't trust me with their secrets if their allegiance was to Ozai. They know I'd warn you." She looked at her lap. Her hands were cold, and she tucked them into her sleeves. "I shouldn't leave."

"I shouldn't have told you," Zuko said. "Now you're worried."

"Yes, you should have told me." Unless this was one of his ploys to get her to stay--but he wasn't like that. That would be something Azula would do, not Zuko. He really was just telling her, and now she had a decision to make, after she thought it was already made. When did it become so hard to choose a course of action? "And I'm not worried. I'm mildly concerned."

"I'm not worried about them," Zuko said. "I don't think they can rally enough support to actually do anything. I know I'll be making some unpopular decisions, but they'll realize that it is for the best, that the Fire Nation must make amends for what it has done. I don't think anyone can honestly say that my father's idea to use the comet to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground was a good idea." 

"Where were these reasonable people when Firelord Sozin destroyed the air nomads?"

Zuko's face paled. 

"Do you really believe they're not a threat?" Mai asked.

"I do," Zuko said. 

"Then I'll still go to Azula." She leaned closer to him, jabbed his chest with her finger. "But the minute you think they might be up to something that's more than just talk, you better send a messenger hawk and that flying bison."

He laughed as he folded her hand in his. "You have my word as Firelord."

They were silent for a moment, and Mai put her head on his shoulder, even though it would muss her little buns. That was something Azula cared about, something stupid girls cared about: their hair, their beautiful hair. Well, who cared. And Azula's hair wasn't that nice anyway.

Mai spread her palm over Zuko’s chest, over where Azula had finally given someone a physical scar of her own after power fantasizing about it for years. There were no words big enough to thank Katara for what she had done, so Mai hadn’t done it yet. She should, but she didn’t know how—but she thought about what Katara did every day.  

“I don’t want you to go,” he said, whispering into her hair. "And not because of this New Ozai business. Just in general. Just because I'll miss you and the way we hate the world together."

“You could make it up to me,” Mai said. “You could let me travel in style instead of that fishing boat you picked up.” 

He let his arms fall around her shoulders. “It’s too large for a fishing boat, Mai. And besides, traveling in style befitting a princess of the Fire Nation would defeat the purpose of it.” 

“Azula isn’t like you,” Mai said. “She’s not in exile.” 

“She’s not. But she must find balance within herself. She must learn that the world doesn’t bow at her feet. She must learn that being a princess of the Fire Nation isn’t about domination or imposing people with all the fine things she has, and that it’s only one part of her, not her entire whole.” 

“But I don’t need to learn that lesson,” Mai said.   

Zuko’s smiled slyly at her. “If you desire the comfort of the palace, then stay here.” 

Mai hid her face from him by leaning against his shoulder. “It’s not the comfort of the palace that I’ll miss.”  

They sat in comfortable silence for some time, until Mai spoke. "I don't understand what's happening. I thought she was faking, about not being able to bend. But I don't think she is. She's really lost it." She couldn't go on. It was too strange that Azula could not bend. It was like saying that someone could survive without air. She could not imagine Azula without her firebending. She could not imagine never being afraid of it again. It was too much a part of her now, like bending had been for Azula.  

Zuko touched her hand. "Something similar happened to me." 

She tilted her head up, that she might look at him. "What?" 

"Twice actually." He shifted, like he didn't want to look at her, like he was ashamed. "I didn't lose my bending the first time, but I was sick, afflicted with an illness my uncle said was caused by doing something contrary to everything I had once believed." 

"What did you do?" 

"I set Avatar Aang's bison free, where I found it imprisoned in the Earth Kingdom." 

Mai sighed. She had expected something a little more exciting than that. "Then what?"  

"Then, something similar happened when I switched sides—again." He looked down at his lap. "I was supposed to teach the Avatar firebending, but when it came down to it, when I left you and Azula and my father, I didn't have the power I once had. There was fire, but no heat. So much had changed—I had changed so much, that what had once given me power—my anger and my shame—didn't anymore, because they were gone." 

"Is that why you agreed to her proposal," Mai said, "because you know what it's like?" 

Zuko nodded. "She wouldn't have lost her bending if she wasn't in great conflict with herself. Once, my uncle told me that I was at a crossroads of my destiny, and I believe that she is at crossroads too. I know what she would choose, if she had the power—she would choose our father, and she would choose for the Fire Nation to burn everyone and everything to the ground, but she has also lost everything. Everything she once knew is in question. She can choose differently—she just needs the time and the space to make the right choice, to choose good."  

Mai raised her hand to touch his face, not the side with the scar because he wasn't a huge fan of being touched there without a little warning or unless he initiated it. "You really believe in her?" 

He put his hand over hers. His palm was warm, comforting. "Yes, I do. I have to, not just as her brother, but as the Firelord." 

"I don't," Mai said flatly.  

"You don't have to," Zuko said. "I don't blame you for not believing in her—but it's something that I have to do."  

They fell back into silence again, and this time it went on unbroken. Zuko held her, and she let him for so long that they both fell into a drowse. She held his hand lightly, not tight enough to cling, just enough to remind herself that he was there, and that he would be there again, when she returned.


	13. Suki and Ty Lee

Ty Lee painted her face white and red, the green of her kimono pulling it all together into a true warrior of Kyoshi, who had once been the Avatar, like Aang. 

It felt strange, sometimes, that she, a girl of the Fire Nation, was welcomed into the Earth Kingdom. Prison, perhaps, created stronger bonds than was to be anticipated. 

It would be easier to tell Suki that she could no longer continue in their company at least for a time. She hoped they would let her back into their group with open arms when she returned. There were still so many new things they could learn to improve their technique and to add more skills to their repertoire. She had treasured them all up in her heart, in her mind, for years and she had so much to share. 

It was hard to be light on her feet in these heavy boots. More than once she had considered crafting a pair of supple slippers to wear instead, similar to the circus shoes she had worn with Azula, when she had first danced the tight ropes of the fine edge of Azula’s words, the sliver of her smile, the feather-light touch of her fingers when the slightest mistake would be enough for her to tumble head over knees. 

A sweat broke out across her forehead as she remembered her last meeting with Azula, and she flushed. She braided her long hair by tugging it harshly against her scalp, pulling her skin taut to keep her eyes wide open against the sting of it. 

Once, she had been free of Azula. They had graduated from the Academy. Her family had been rescued out of poverty because of Azula’s good deeds (because of course a member of the Academy couldn’t be a peasant—a minor position of nobility had been made for her father), and she had been Azula’s friend, and then she had wanted to rejoin the circus. 

Azula had been fine with that—until she needed Ty Lee again, and Ty Lee had always known, of course, that the favor Azula had done for her would never be repaid. Could never be repaid, in Azula's eyes at least. 

But she had wanted to stay away from her, and then Azula had threatened her with bending that hadn't even been hers. The fire that lit the net had not been blue.

Ty Lee furled and unfurled the gold fan. Who would win in a fair fight—Mai or Ty Lee or Azula? They’d never tried until that day, and then it was the guards who had taken them away, and not Azula. 

The three of them had never tried to peel back their skin with fire-forged nails to reveal their weaknesses, their fears—to leave the bones of their bodies laid bare to be treasured or to be picked clean by humiliation and defeat. 

Until Mai. 

Until Mai made her choose. 

Until Azula made Ty Lee choose between them. 

And Ty Lee hated choosing.

Growing up poor had been hard. Sometimes, she hadn’t had a choice. Sometimes, there was no food for anyone. Other times, there was a little food and she could choose to eat it or give it to her sisters. There were always choices to be made between buying food or using those same coins to buy medicine to heal their sick, and there were always, always sick. Sick and weak and hungry, their skin breaking into sores from a hot sun, or shivering constantly from the cold, clothes worn thin from too much use, and always too big or too small instead of fitting just right. 

No choices could be made then. Every decision was the wrong one. 

Ty Lee rubbed a hand over the thickness of her kimono over her full belly.  

They hadn’t had full bellies like she had now. They didn’t have anything so rich and yet so plain. 

And they definitely had nothing like the red silks that had slipped over Azula’s skin like water. 

Even when they did have the money to buy whatever they wanted, she still wore something plain, something utilitarian, to remind herself that it wasn’t really hers and that Azula could take it away as easily as she had given it. It was a question that had plagued her when Azula had banished her to prison, if her family would be joining her and, when she was released, she had discovered that Azula had completely forgotten about her family.  

It was strange to feel gratitude for something like that. 

But when they were still friends, Azula had wanted to know, why she didn't wear the fine things she could wear, the clothes she should be wearing. You have me now, Ty Lee, she had said, combing her hair with her fingers. Why don’t you dress like it? Let everyone see? You don't have to be ashamed of who you are anymore. 

Azula was a girl who needed to see the trophies of her endeavors, and Ty Lee would not begrudge her. Azula did things no one else did or could do and she was beautiful and perfect, but Ty Lee also knew that Azula didn’t ever do anything out of the goodness of her heart. 

The debt would never be repaid, not even when every single one of her family had died of old age. 

Mai didn’t understand because she had grown up with wealth and education and food and medicine. Perhaps she didn’t really understand what it meant to be able to message home, and for her sisters to send their letters back—their grammar and characters formed so perfectly, so well spoken when before they could barely articulate their feelings on paper. No one would have been able to guess they had been born poor. Nobody called them peasants or asked if they were old Earth Kingdom colonists who had fled back home to the mother country, penniless and disgraced.  

Not that there was anything wrong with the Earth Kingdom, Ty Lee thought. The old Fire Lord said they were nothing but savages, but Suki proved them wrong. Ba Sing Se had proven them wrong. 

The Fire Nation was wrong about a lot of things. 

The Kyoshi Warriors never mentioned Ty Lee’s part in Ba Sing Se—never brought up how they had walked into the great city wearing their kimonos and their faces while they were shipped off to a Fire Nation prison to wear a rustic red that stripped them of everything that had made them them. 

Ty Lee took a steadying breath, just like Azula had taught her. Of course, it worked best for firebenders, Azula had said, but it was helpful even if you couldn’t bend. She’d been right of course. Azula had been right about so many things, and wrong about so many other things. 

She tried to untangle the memories that had lead to the conquest of Ba Sing Se when they were supposed to have just brought Zuko home. She hadn’t had a vested interest, of course, in seeing the great city fall—just in seeing Azula triumph because her triumph meant good things for them. 

And, also, the thrill in succeeding where so many others had failed—others that Ty Lee had been told her whole life were better than she. 

But the Kyoshi Warriors never mentioned it. Always, Ty Lee held her breath, waiting for them to throw it in her face. To accuse and challenge her.  

Maybe that was just something Azula did, but still, she had her arguments prepared just in case. She would say: I taught you to bring me down. You can defeat me now if I ever turn on you. You can hold a razor edge of a fan blade to my throat and I would be helpless to stop you because I taught you how to block chi, something I never taught Azula. 

She hoped it would be enough. 

Someone knocked at the door and Ty Lee welcomed the distraction from the circling thoughts in her head. It was Suki—not in her Kyoshi gear, but her face a little older than the person Ty Lee had once fought in the woods.  

Suki was the kind of person who didn’t need armor to gain people’s respect. She was so self-assured, she didn’t need to flare her fan like a peacock to let everyone know.  

Ty Lee respected that. “Hey Suki!” She pitched her voice familiarly high, beautifully girlish, definitely no trouble at all to anyone. 

“Ty Lee,” Suki said. “Why are you still all get up? Are you going somewhere?” 

Ty Lee smiled serenely. “Well, I am a Kyoshi Warrior now.” 

“I know about Azula and that you’ve volunteered to go with her,” Suki said, cutting straight to the point, which was something else that Ty Lee respected. 

So much for pretending to ask for permission first. She should have gone to Suki right away. Ty Lee’s smile slipped, so she twirled away to hide it. “It seems only fair.” 

“Fair? Fair to who?” 

Ty Lee fell into a familiar stretch, feeling the burn in her thighs as she pulled a leg back behind her shoulder—which was exceedingly difficult through all the thick gear she wore. She looked back at Suki, whose mouth was open in appreciation. “Fair to everyone, of course.” She switched to the other leg. “The last time we were with Azula, it was bad. I don’t think you understand how bad. Everything is raw and sore—and not the good kind of sore that comes when you slough off your rough edges and find solace and comfort in your friends." She could still smell that campfire on the beach if she breathed deep enough. Could still feel the hurt of being called circus freak. Mai’s apathetic observation stung in between her shoulders in that place she could never quite reach. It wasn’t fair that she had said those things. What was so wrong with wanting to be in the center? To be seen, to be appreciated, to be admired?  

She bent at the waist to hide the twist in her lip. She had been so sure that things were going to be different after the beach. She guessed, in the end, that they had been, but not in the way that she had wanted them to be. Maybe it had been stupid of her to think that things could change for the better. “There’s so much bad energy knotted up in our auras. I can even see it in Mai’s despite the perpetual dinginess of hers. But everyone is brooding like a storm cloud, and my aura could be pinker.” 

“Is that your way of saying you need resolution?” 

“It’s my way of saying that Azula’s aura is so dark and blue it looks like a big bruise,” Ty Lee said. “She needs to heal, and it won’t happen here.” 

“You need to heal,” Suki said. “That friendship was not a friendship.” 

“It was,” Ty Lee said, dropping into the splits. She gestured for Suki to pull up her leg so she could deepen the stretch.  

Suki obliged. Ty Lee knew she could keep pulling if she wanted to. Could make the burn turn into pain, could turn her steady breathing into sobs as she pleaded for Azula to let go, to go easy on her. And Azula would have said—had said—that it was for her own good because didn’t she want to be the best?  

“She threw you in prison,” Suki said. 

“You would have done the same.” 

Suki guided Ty Lee’s leg down, and knelt beside her. “Only because you were the Fire Nation burning down the Earth Kingdom. I wouldn’t put my friend in prison simply because I felt that I had been betrayed.” 

“I did betray her,” Ty Lee said.  

“You don’t need to go back to her,” Suki said. “You don’t need to be friends with her just because she says you need to, or because she wants something back from the good old days.” 

Ty Lee couldn’t help but giggle at that. “She would sooner see me burn than see my face again. She doesn’t want to be friends.” Her ribcage felt like it was collapsing in on her lungs, like it was squeezing every breath out of her. After everything—it wasn't fair. Even alone and powerless in her room, Azula was still calling every single shot. “She doesn’t know how to forgive.” 

If anybody ended the friendship, it would be Ty Lee. She had been willing to overlook Azula crossing the line in regards to Mai, so why couldn’t Azula pay her the same courtesy? 

They had both crossed the line, and after they had hurt each other, they had eventually fallen back to the other side of it. They could back from this. 

The first thing that Ty Lee had learned in the circus was that she would fall, and she had to be prepared for that. 

Hence the net. Hence learning how to fall safely, body curled up protectively around the fragile pieces of her. 

Azula and she might have fallen from the tight rope they’d tiptoed across together, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a net. That didn’t mean they still had to fall and fall, bellies dropping, eyes flashing glimpses of the other’s face as they waited for them to bottom out, to belly flop against rock and stone and splash the walls with the beautiful red of their fears turned inside out. 

That’s why they needed Mai.  

“Ty Lee?” Suki said, her hand heavy on Ty Lee, like she was trying to wake her from a deep sleep. 

“What is it?” 

“Are you sure about this? I mean, really really sure?” 

Ty Lee bestowed upon her the most winning smile in her wide repertoire of smiles—one for every occasion. “Of course I’m sure. I’ve never been more sure about anything in the whole world.” 

Suki sighed, and folded her hands in Ty Lee’s. “Okay. If you are sure, then I’m sure that I’m coming with you.” 

Those were the very last words that Ty Lee had expected from Suki’s mouth—Suki, who had spent so much time away from home, who had told Ty Lee that she needed to see the way the sun set over Kyoshi Island again. That she needed to watch the sea serpent lounge like lazy islands in the shallow water. That she missed their sweet fruits, the way the juice would trickle down their chins, the way everything was perfect and home and not here at all. “You don’t have to do that.” Ty Lee’s words faltered and tumbled from her lips like she’d just learned to walk on her hands. 

“I know. But I have an outsider’s eye. I was never friends with Azula, and I can stop anything if she takes it too far.” 

“Is that the only reason you’re coming?” Ty Lee folded her arms over her chest, pouting a little bit. “To chaperone?” 

“No. I’m also coming because you’re a Kyoshi Warrior now. Unlikely as it may seem, we’re sisters. Sisters stick together, thick and thin, no matter how long or short our road together might be.” 

Ty Lee caught Suki’s hand as she turned to go. “I lied before, when we first met. Before we knew anything about you.” 

“Back when we were enemies?” Suki asked.  

Ty Lee would have liked it better if Suki had smiled just a little bit—haha, those good old days when we were on different sides of the war—but that was the thing about Suki. She was always honest. “I said that you weren’t prettier than us—but you are. Your aura is a spring green—like new things growing.” In better days, Ty Lee knew that their auras would complement each other—but these days, her pink was more nauseous than healthy and rosy. 

Suki blushed a very tiny bit. “Thank you, Ty Lee.” Then she was gone, and Ty Lee was alone.  

She bent at the waist, stretched her back like a serpent so that the hot tears gathering in her eyes would not fall.


	14. Departure

Zuko had deigned to give them a small ship for their journey. He granted no servants—technically, no servants existed anymore. They received payment now, security of position, and other such things that made them more equals than not. 

It was different than how their father had done things. How she would have done things. 

However, she was not expecting to be visited so soon before she took her leave of them by an irritated Zuko and an infuriated Water Tribe boy. She watched them as Sokka stormed through the hallways, Zuko hurrying after him. 

People were beautiful when they were angry. They were easy to manipulate. Once, her brother had caved easily to that anger—but now, it was almost as if he were not her brother anymore even though he was. 

How could she recognize him without his anger? 

Sokka finally managed to break past Zuko’s attempts to hold him back and burst through her room. “What did you say to them? Don’t bother lying.” His face was twisted into an ugly frown. 

Azula took her time answering. “I’m a very good liar. It’s what I do. But you’ll have to be more specific. I talk to lots of people.” 

“Suki,” Sokka said, “what did you say to Suki?” 

Azula sighed the sigh of the long suffering. “I haven’t even spoken to Suki since I locked her away all those months ago.” She fluttered her hand as if time were meaningless. “Perhaps you should ask her instead of me.” 

Zuko looked from her to Sokka, then back again. “She’s going with you. Did you know?” 

“Well, since my chambers are essentially serving as a prison cell I don’t see how I could possibly have known. Unless you think I can read minds now?” She turned away so they wouldn’t see her pulse jumping in her throat or how she clenched her fist against her chest. Suki coming? Mai coming? She would never escape with those two trailing her. 

“Ty Lee’s coming too,” Zuko said. “She’s already spoken to Mai about it.” 

“Of course she has,” Azula said. There was a time when she would have spoken to Azula first in all things. Ty Lee had been the first of their trio. Ty Lee had been the first to rejoin her. 

At least she hadn’t been the first to betray her.  

But now she saw clearly. Azula had never been first. She thought she had been their head, their face, but she hadn’t been. Had it been Ty Lee? Mai? And, now that they would all be together again, where would Azula fall between them? 

Newly stoked shamed burned in her stomach when she realized that she was on the verge of tears. 

“Look, Zuko—" Sokka’s voice came from far away, speaking as if she were not there—“I get that you’re good now and you saved my sister and everything, but my instincts are telling me that this is a stunningly bad idea. Do you remember the last time those three got together? They took over Ba Sing Se! They almost killed Aang! Nobody just does that—only dangerous people do.” 

“I remember,” Zuko said hastily. “Don’t feed her ego.” 

There was shame in his voice too, and it made Azula feel not so alone, and it made her sick that she would seek something like solace with her brother. She remembered what she had said, that she had needed him by her side deep in the caverns of Ba Sing Se when she had caught him (again) listening to the words of their treacherous uncle who always had so many precious words to spare for his precious Zuzu. 

“Besides,” he said, going over to Sokka and putting his hand on his shoulder, “Ty Lee is in the Kysohi Warriors and Mai—" 

“Loves you more than she fears me. I can’t think of a better trio of babysitters.” Azula ran her fingers through her hair and settled her face into stone. “I have nothing to do with their decisions. They were made without me. You know me, Zuko, I work best alone. If I were planning something, I’d plan it by myself and not with enemies and traitors. If you’re upset about it, talk to them."

"Zuko, don't listen to here!" Sokka protested.

"I will not be delayed any longer by this!" Azula said. "If I’m not on that boat you found for me by the end of the week, I’ll escape the palace and make my own way and deal with whoever you send after me, even if it’s the Avatar himself. And I think,” she added, smiling, “you remember how I’ve dealt with him before. I’ll also tell every person I pass that the great Firelord Zuzu is a liar and a coward. It’s your choice.” 

Sokka blinked at her, then leaned dramatically toward Zuko. “You’re going to let her talk to you like that?” 

“It means nothing,” Zuko said. “You leave tomorrow. The preparations will be finished by then.” 

Zuko took Sokka by the arm, guiding from her room, and then they were gone, leaving her blissfully alone.  

Azula tried to firebend, hoping that the promise of freedom would spark something, but nothing happened. 

She raised her hands, imagined smashing them until they were mangled and useless. They might as well be. She gripped a fistful of hair, twisting it painfully, before she remembered that her room had been gutted of her scissors and all her sharp things—as if her material possessions no longer belonged to her, just like her body didn’t belong to her, just like her will to go as she pleased didn’t belong to her. 

Crawling into bed, she brought her knees to her chest so that she wouldn’t have to feel that gnawing, fallow pit in her stomach. 

At least the mirror was gone. At least she didn’t need to worry about meeting her mother’s eyes in an unlucky glance. 

Azula woke early before the dawn to ready herself for the journey. She wore the clothes she had worn a long time ago when her father had ordered her to bring her brother home.  

But Li and Lo came when the sun was just a pink ribbon on the horizon. They brought with them clothes that were not befitting a lady of her station: rough, homespun tunics of a questionable color—something that would allow her to pass through the four kingdoms without overtly signaling that she was Fire Nation. Clothes that looked as if she could be anything and nothing at the same time. 

They undressed her. They held her hands in theirs and trimmed her nails. They dressed her quickly and efficiently.  

The garment hung loose over her thin shoulders. The trousers were wide—not as wide as Mai’s, but wide and loose enough that she could fight easily in them if she were required to. The collar hung low, scraping her collarbones instead of the regalia she had once worn hugging her neck in close, protecting it, protecting her. 

She might as well have been naked in this. 

Li and Lo handed her boots that promised to turn her own feet into leather when they invariably wore thin. They held her feet in their dry, old hands as they helped her slip the boots on. 

For a moment, she leaned into their touch. They were warm, and her feet were cold.  

When they had finished dressing her—twitching at the folds so they lay just right, smoothing the sash around her waist—they turned her so that she faced them.  

Li cupped her cheeks with her warm hands while Lo moved to stand behind Azula. A comb scraped against her scalp, and Azula closed her eyes.  

“Princess Azula,” they crooned. 

She opened her eyes. 

“You are not being sent away in disgrace as your brother Zuko.” 

Li’s thumbs moved in circles and Lo’s hands were gentle in her hair. It wasn’t until Li held a small mirror before her that Azula realized what they had been doing. 

Lo had tied her hair into a topknot with a bit of red ribbon.  

“You are not in exile,” they said.  

“Because he expects me to come crawling back, weeping about how much a monster I am. He’ll want me to prove my goodness.” She frowned and tugged herself from their loose embrace. She did not know how to be good. She did not want to be good. 

“Your brother doesn’t see it that way, Princess Azula,” they said. 

Azula scoffed and waited for them to escort her to the dock. She couldn’t imagine there was anything else that needed to be done.  

Their ship was small—big enough for the four of them, but that was about it. Mai and Ty Lee were there already. Suki was kissing Sokka goodbye and it made Azula’s stomach turn.  

Ty Lee cartwheeled to her, no longer wearing the Kyoshi Warrior garb but something dark and ambiguous like Azula’s own clothes. Her stomach was bare again. Ty Lee flung her arms wide and fell crushingly around her shoulders, and it took all of Azula’s strength not to stagger under her weight. 

“Oh, Princess Azula!” Ty Lee said. “It’s so good to see you again!” She stepped back, her fingers curved into the soft flesh of her shoulders, thumbs pressed against pressure points Azula knew Ty Lee could use to hurt her if she wanted. “I think we’re going to have so much fun together.” 

Azula glared at her. "We're not here to have fun, Ty Lee." 

“Aren’t you going to hug me back, Azula?” 

How did no one else see the steel creeping into Ty Lee's soft eyes? But Azula saw that the others were watching her, and that what she did in this moment counted, so she quickly stepped towards Ty Lee and hugged her. 

Mai stood by Zuko’s side, her arms folded tight against her. “I’m not doing that,” she said in her bored dead voice.  

Azula saw the shimmer of silver in her sleeves and wondered again if Mai would have killed her if she could--had not Ty Lee interfered. 

How hungry had Mai been in that instant? 

Mai turned toward Zuko, and he dipped toward her, the scarred side of his face pressed gently against Mai’s cheek, her eyes drifting closed for an instant as she pressed a kiss to his mouth. 

It was sickening. 

As Azula stomped up the gangway leading to the deck of the ship, she distantly heard Li and Lo bidding her goodbye. But someone caught her wrist, and she turned to see Zuko holding onto her. “Careful, Zuko. One might think you’d want me to stay." She smiled. "Remember the last time we were on a ship?” 

Zuko covered his cheek with his palm. “You scratched me.” 

She flicked his forehead with her fingers. "It was here, dum-dum. Not your cheek." 

He scowled at her. "And then tried to shoot lightening at me."

"It certainly wasn't the first time for that, either." She smiled at him, thinking of the scar on his chest, then turned to see that the ship was mostly empty of occupants. “Where are the sailors?” 

“We couldn’t find anyone who desired to go,” Zuko said. “The four of you will sail yourselves.” 

“Oh. How delightful.” She looked at the water lapping the sides of the ship. “Then we had better hurry if we want to beat the tide.” 

Mai and Ty Lee and Suki filed in line on the ship. They released the moorings, let down the sail to catch the wind, and finally, for the first time, Azula felt a little less trapped. 

Soon, the Fire Nation, her home for so long, disappeared beyond the horizon. 

“Where are we going, Azula?” Ty Lee said. She was scrambling in the rigging.  

“Ember Island. My brother hid there for some time with the Avatar—or so I’ve been told. Perhaps Mom had the same idea, hiding so close to home no one would think to look for her there. And if she was never there, maybe we'll find a clue as to where she might have gone." 

It was a good story, Azula thought. Ty Lee shrugged, as she always did, and went with whatever Azula said (for now, at least). Mai glared harder, but said nothing. 

Mai knew, Azula realized. Perhaps even Ty Lee knew. But they were granting her the gift of playing along, knowing that Ember Island was a ridiculous place to start, and that if Azula were truly invested in finding Mom as soon as possible she would have immediately gone to her hometown, which was a long journey over land and sea that provided very little opportunity to get her bending back. Wherever she would find her bending, it wouldn’t be on this dingy boat.  

It would be someplace that had once been home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the official end of Book One: Ash! For Book Two: Smoke, follow the link: [click here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7168973/chapters/16274405)!


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